SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
Resource-rich Balochistan has been suffering from educational backwardness. Although many promises have been made, little has been done to deal with the crisis. Moreover, it is disheartening to know that there are 5,000 schools in the province that don’t have a building and operate in the open air, mostly with a single teacher. The literacy rate in Balochistan, standing at 39 percent, is the lowest when compared with all other provinces. Over 2.3 million children are out of school and there is lack of basic infrastructure and facilities in most colleges and schools of the province.
In order to improve education in Balochistan, Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch announced an education emergency in Balochistan on January 4, 2014. It has been almost 15 months since the education emergency was announced and it has proved to be nothing more than a political gimmick. According to annual ASER report, in Balochistan, only 34 per cent of government teachers were graduates. Eighty-one per cent children between the ages of three and five years were not enrolled in any early childhood schooling. Seventy-one per cent of the schools had no drinking water, 75 per cent lacked boundary walls and 83 per cent lacked proper toilets. Ironically, in places like Chaghi and Reko Dik, where gold, copper and semi-precious stones are found, people have difficulty in getting a meal twice a day. In such a situation, how will they be able to send their children to expensive private institutions? The government needs to take a bold step and divorce all sort of politics and bad governance from the education sector. Leaving education aside, there are numerous sectors that are fertile ground for politics. The Balochistan government must depoliticise the education sector and start work on improving it on a war-footing. Until Government addresses core issues of Baloch people it cannot integrate disgruntled youth into country’s mainstream.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
