Amidst the Deceptive Policies Girls in the Resource Rich Province Remain Deprived of Educational Opportunities

In the backdrop of deceptive educational emergency presented by the ex-Chief Minister of Balochistan in January 2014, it is appropriate to raise the questions again for the abysmal state of education particularly for females in the province.

Unequivocal path to strategic and sustainable socio-economic development is only possible when females have equal educational opportunities however the state of education in the province remains unchanged and over the years if it is evolving, then so far there are no signs that it is evolving in the right direction.    

On the other hand there’s dearth of accurate statistics and on ground information that draft the true stories of the issues related to female education in the province. There is not so much of feudal rule or social restrictions and religious extremism in most parts of the province that confine women as compared to KPK, yet 90% of the girls in rural Balochistan are deprived of primary level education and more than 95% remain deprived of proper higher education in the semi-urban regions.
In 2000 along with 163 other nations, Pakistan signed “Dakar Framework of Action” that set six goals to be achieved by 2015. The Goal 2 of Article 7 of it says:

“Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children with difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality”

Indeed children of Balochistan are in difficult situation, having two thirds of them out of school, at least thousands of them affected by the insurgency and particularly girls who don’t have access to primary education throughout the province excluding very few areas even fifteen years after the federal ministers signed international commitments of “Dakar Framework of Action” and the Millennium Development Goals.

Moreover, in the port city of Gwadar girls have been attending boys college since 1996 and today the starting point of 46$ billion CPEC (China-Pak Economic Corridor) stands without a single girls college. Even the boys’ college they attend at present is short of lecturers for about more than a half of the subjects.

Since mega cities like Gwadar lack proper education for females, there will probably be even lesser expectations for the remote areas. In such situations, there are only two options left for parents; to either send their daughters far to the provincial capital and any other city with proper educational environment and facilities, or to let them stay in their dispossessed regions and remain deprived of life changing process of education.

Limited financial resources, security issues and the lack of facilities in the dormitories of Universities further contribute for hesitation of most parents to support their daughters for acquiring proper higher education.

Out of 32 districts of Balochistan, there are universities only in very few districts. Poor Infrastructure in most districts of the province and having no direct roads from and to the most of the towns, it is almost unfeasible mainly for girls to continue university education. For instance; there is only one medical college in the province which is in Quetta, a student from Jivani, Ormara or Gwadar would have to travel to Sindh first before stepping to their own provincial capital. 

Furthermore, since 2006 Balochistan has been going through a continuous insurgency that had worsen the economic and law and order situations. Leaving out Quetta, Karachi or Lahore for higher education, majority of population in Balochistan does not even afford to send their children to nearby towns and districts.

Having alarming economic and educational situations in the province and with a great need of human resource at present, there should have been more financial assistance programs and specially for young women to help them continue their studies however young women in Balochistan who would have otherwise contributed for economic growth often stop dreaming as a consequence of very limited opportunities and that too with political influence. 

On the other hand security issues are other hindrances. The blasts in Sardar Bahadur Khan (SBK) Women University in June 2013 and undergoing the worst educational situation after the educational emergency was announced; the forced closure of schools and prohibition of girls’ education in Panjgur by unknown organization in April-May 2014, acid attacks on girls in different parts of the province during the last two years and assassination of Zahid Askani the promoter of female education in less privileged port city of Gwadar in December 2014, were enough factors to discourage the deprived girls of the troubled province.

During the past decades, when government had failed to promote education in rural areas of the country, many foreign nations showed interest to run educational programs. Permission to foreign help was granted in rest of the country but not in Balochistan after 2012. For instance, English Access Micro-scholarship a two-year program of US State Department that enables young girls and boys of rural areas and slums to learn English and basic skills, has been benefitting different parts of the country but after its success in Gwadar in 2007-09, the people of Balochistan were never fortunate enough to have it sustained in their province.

Although Article 25A of Constitution of Pakistan has determined the right to education to all, yet transforming the words of country’s constitution and policies to promote female education into action is a litmus test for the government.