Saddam Shah
Normally feudal structure of Balochistan is subjected as a reason of its backwardness by the educated class of other growing provinces and that may be one of the reasons but in current age of modernization, lack of various professionals in the province is also a very big cause in the race of development with last position of huge gap.
Every society goes through different stages of development but Balochistan has long stay in the ongoing stage of backwardness but it does not mean total stagnation in development rather moments of action for growing can be observed in its people.
The geo-strategic significance of Balochistan is very modern and international but the people and provincial government are both unable to tackle it efficiently. Everywhere in the world few minds bring new thoughts on the ground to uplift their society and they can be titled as progressives of the day.
Education is a means and a golden gate to produce such minds but of course a quality education that can inculcate vision in students of every profession of the world despite filling of their minds with stories to cram. The education trend in Balochistan is highly growing but yet with a tragedy that there are only two fields very well known that has very less contribution to the development of any society and these are Medical and Engineering but no other hundreds of field are known even by literate class of it so how can one wait for the better result of education unless students are shattered to complete their degrees in various fields in order to contribute for their province in particular and their country in general.
Career counseling is totally missing in the educational institutions. Civil society has also not done anything appreciable in this context and it is very obvious to have professionals in every field in order to bring the backward province on fast track of development. The people of Balochistan especially of its capital seem politically very mature but that is only local maturity and a common man knows very well of dominating parties either nationalist or religious which work on their own minds and not backing think tanks, professionals of diplomacy and decision making in politics. Technical politics is the point where the politicians of the province are bitterly defeated.
The businessmen are doing their business of traditional type and not on international or at least national standard even though they can highly benefit their region if they start it on such standard so there can be a good role of private sector for boosting economic prosperity. There is not a single industry even not for the refining of Chromite and other minerals and the reason is again lack of professionals that is why Chinese companies are taking a big amount of resources from the Gold and Copper of Sandik and Rekodik.
The shortage of water level in Balochistan and its heavy loss of agriculture can only be compensated if professionals are produced because in this age technicality matters a lot and not the traditional ways of being master of all without being expert of the field. Balochistan’s society is enriched with sociological material which can be extracted through researches but who belongs to the field to do it except if the foreigners come and do with their own style.
The largest university built in 1970 has nearly thirty departments to produce students in this modern age of learning. Being at this stage it can of course be impractical to face the music. There is utter need of career counseling and at least provincial government can afford this easy but the most important task with the help of civil societies and other organizations. Once the province gets good number of professionals, they will themselves create such environment that can be for the solution of numerous problems of Balochistan and would highly contribute for the province and country.
Writer is a student of Political Science at University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
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