Bleak picture of females’ education in rural Balochistan
Bleak picture of females’ education in rural Balochistan
Sana Samad
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Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan occupying around 43 percent of the country’s land area. It is the least populated province with 5 percent of the population residing there. In Balochistan, almost 80 percent of the people are passing their lives in small villages.

The people belonging to rural areas are deprived from the advanced technologies even not getting three times the food and other basic facilities including lack of schools, lack of water and many more. Government has never taken care of the poor people and never asked them about their problems that need to be solved soon.

The available statistics of education in Balochistan portray a bleak picture. Mostly the education is neglected in rural areas, and boys are getting opportunities, but girls leave their education after passing primary education as due to lack of funds, no high schools are available where they can read and gain knowledge. Though the literacy rate of women is growing in Pakistan, and great improvement has been seen in the last few years, the literacy rate among rural women in Balochistan is decreasing day by day. It is shocking to know that the literacy rate of rural females of Balochistan is less than 2 percent. The girls are enrolled in different jobs including cooking food, cleaning the houses, child bearing and rearing and all other domestic support required by the husband and other family members. The females give more favor to this household work and never bother themselves to attend schools. The second reason is lack of awareness among females about the importance of education.

A project Mobile Female Teacher Training Unit (MFTTU) has been launched to recognize the importance of education for girls in rural areas of Balochistan. It made people believe that girls in rural areas also deserve education, and they can play an essential role for the upcoming generation of the rural people. Though it is playing a significant role for the quality education of girls, it is losing its desired benefits because of the issues related to time and handling the program to traditional people.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the girls are deprived from schooling. Most neglected parts are Buleda, Kharan, Bolan and Marri and Bugti tribal areas. These villages are deprived of primary schools. In other places primary schools are present, but the problem is that there is no presence of high schools for getting higher education. Even in some places of Quetta, no primary schools are present. The more saddening news is that these out-of-school children are being enrolled in bad activities which has totally devastated their career as mostly the girls are being used for illegal activities to earn money.

The main responsibility of the destruction of small girls is only the government. Questions are arising that it is not tough for the government to establish schools in rural areas then why is the government unwilling to build schools? Why is the government neglecting the education of rural areas of Balochistan? The small children want to get education, want to gain knowledge, but what to do without having schools. If in some places schools are available then there is lack of necessary funds, absence of well-defined education policies, shortage of water, acute shortage of teaching staff and poverty are the factors which contribute to the backwardness of rural areas. Today Balochistan is the most backward province in regard to education. If nothing is done, students will gain nothing, and Balochistan will never be able to succeed in the education sector.