PAKISTAN: Need for Girls’ Education Felt but Schools are Missing

By Zofeen Ebrahim Reprint | | Print |

Zofeen Ebrahim

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21 2005 (IPS) - Ghazala Bibi, 21, considers herself privileged to be studying for a bachelors degree even though she has to do it privately and from her home, a two-hour drive into the hills north-east of the national capital.

Not many girls in her remote village of Waghal make it as far secondary school simply because one does not exist for girls.

”There is a primary school for girls but no secondary, so the girls from poor families have little choice but to stay at home and help out with household chores or prepare to get married,” Ghazala explains. ” There are two privately-run middle schools and one high school in the village, but few can afford the fees”.

The fact that she is one of the few girls in these parts to have been able to pursue her studies this far does not stop her from doing her fair share of household work.

”I fetch water before sunrise from a stream, a half- hour walk from my house, do the dusting, washing, and all the usual chores that girls are expected to do before I set off to teach kids at the nearby private school,” is how she describes her morning routine.

Taking off her veil, to reveal a bright and cheerful face, Ghazala describes the rest of a typical day. ”In the evening I again walk the same distance to fetch water and help with the cooking as we are a large family”.

After that she prepares the school work for the following day and then sits down to do her studies, literally burning the ‘midnight oil’ as there is no electricity in her village Waghal.

Picturesque Waghal in the Punjab province, has better education indicators than Pakistan’s other three provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Waghal also boasts an overall literacy rate of over 55 percent which is higher than the national average rate of 54 percent in this Islamic country of 162 million people.

Education has given Ghazala inner confidence. ”I was nominated by our women’s organisation that we recently formed to put forward the issues faced by the community women at the newly- formed union council forum, facilitated by Concern Worldwide in Pakistan,” she says.

”For us, water supply seems to be a major issue. A lot of time is wasted just fetching water and it never seems to be enough. If we can sort this issue, a lot of other problems will get resolved. And this is the agenda we will be tabling in our meetings most vociferously”.

Being a teacher and a student both, she feels very strongly about the absence of higher educational facilities for girls. ”It’s alright for people like me who can afford to study privately, and I know I’m lucky, but what about scores of others who are deprived just because there is no government-run secondary school?”

”There are a couple of middle schools but these are some distance away from the village and parents don’t feel comfortable about sending their young daughters if they have to walk something like 40 minutes,” she said.

She sheds the myth that parents don’t value education of girls or find it irrelevant and thus, don’t want to send their adolescent daughters to schools. ”People have realised that the root cause of their poverty is lack of education. They want their daughters be given the opportunity to acquire education”.

”Even if they are just going to get married and rear children, her education will be an asset for her children and the community she lives in,” she elaborates.

Ghazala’s sentiments are echoed by Raana Syed, chief of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Sindh province. ”Parents now understand that investing in girls’ education is a route to a better future and prosperity, including to dispel poverty,” said Syed.

There are jobs in the rural areas where the contribution of women is important and does not require their having to leave the village, said Syed. ”Female teachers are really sought after as are lady health workers , to give two good examples. And for that you need to have passed, at the minimum, tenth grade”.

Syed’s enthusiasm is catching on. She feels the stage is set for the government to take advantage of the situation and move in and get the girls enrolled. ”It’s achievable. The time has never been better. The parents seem almost convinced”.

As the country prepares for a new school year this month, getting more girls to attend school is very much on the agenda and a national campaign to boost primary school enrolment is being launched.

An interesting initiative UNICEF, called ‘Fair Play for Girls’, envisages a joining of hands between the Pakistan Cricket Board Women’s Wing and the education department of Punjab, to celebrate the potential of girls and to promote girls’ education and their right to study and play.

A 30-over women’s cricket match is being organised on Sep. 10 in Lahore. ”This will provide us an excellent opportunity to put across the message,” says UNICEF’s Mohammad Ali Fahim.

But despite the progress, huge challenges remain and without a quantum leap, Pakistan will miss the goal of universal primary education by 2015.

Few governments and development agencies have addressed the needs, risks and fears of girls and their families as they decide on whether or not to send their adolescent daughters to school.

According to the 2003-04 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 7.85 million primary-school age children were out of school in Pakistan while UNICEF says that 13 million school-age children are not enrolled in primary schools.

In a way, non-availability of middle and secondary schools or those at a distance have proved to be a deterrent for parents in sending their daughters to primary schools either.

They say if there is going to be no secondary school in the area or if they have to travel a long distance, why put the child to early learning in primary school. Another barrier in the Pakistani rural setting is lack of availability of female teachers.

According to Syed, to improve girls’ enrolment the involvement of parents in schooling is imperative.

And along with that there is a need to provide basic facilities, including water and toilets for them, same sex schools, more motivated and well- paid female teachers to ensure a more child-friendly learning environment for quality education.

Equally important is a curriculum that has greater and more positive visibility of girls/females; a flexible time for enrolment (because of demands, real and trivial, such as sickness, seasonal farm work, care of siblings while mother is away, attending a wedding) and an end to the custom of corporal punishment in schools.

There are 43 million children out of school in South Asia, of which 26 million are girls. UNICEF’s 25 by 2005 campaign seeks to remove gender disparity in primary and secondary schools in 25 countries by the end of this year and Pakistan is one of them.

Low spending on education and health is a leading contributor to the country’s low ranking in the U.N. Human Development Index at 142 out of 177 countries.

While the U. N. recommends that developing countries set aside four percent of gross national product (GNP) for education, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) annual report for 2004 shows that spending is still only 1.8 percent of GNP.

There are vast gender and regional disparities between the provinces. While the overall literacy rate in Sindh is 56 percent, it is only 36 percent in Balochistan and substantial disparities also exist at the district level within provinces.

Pakistan’s overall literacy rate of 54 percent in 2004 was achieved largely due to an increased emphasis on basic education in the country to achieve the U.N. millennium development goals (MDGs) of universal primary education, according to the SBP report.