State of affairs of education in Balochistan has never been satisfactory. There have always been problems in it for different reasons. However due to the increasing awareness among the people and spread of different forms of media, problems in education are better highlighted. It would not be exaggeration to say that education is the most discussed issue in Balochistan after the security related issues.
When discussing about education in Balochistan, the main focus remains on primary and secondary education. The reason is that when the foundations of education are firm then higher education can automatically improve. There is no point in having top quality universities and colleges when there are structural flaws in primary education system.
It can be said that situation of primary and secondary education in Balochistan is abysmal at the moment. It can’t be termed satisfactory in anyway. The statistics also prove this assertion without any doubt. There are different figures about literacy rate in the province. According to one source male Literacy rate is 39 percent while female is 27 percent in impoverished province of Balochistan. Alif Ailan has different figures and it claims that male literacy rate is about 37 percent and female is 15 percent across the province. Considering both of the sources of information to be true, it can be summed up that literacy rate in the province is much less than the national literacy rate of Pakistan which stands at 58 percent.
Another figure which is often used to question the effectiveness of education system in Balochistan is the number of out of school children. The number quoted for out of children varies between 1.6 million to 2.5 million. Government officials deny these claims and say that number of out of school children is less than 1 million whereas independent organizations quote the figure very high.
In this context it’s important to consider the fact that there is lack of authentic data bout education in the province. Different surveys have been conducted by different organizations and almost all of them have provided different results. The reason is that there has been no census since 1998 and this has compelled the researchers to use estimates which can always be far from the reality. That’s the reason that statistics quoted by education in Balochistan can always be misleading.
Plight of education system in Balochistan has resulted in creation of a lot of other problems. Traditionally people of the province relied on agriculture and livestock for their livelihood. Due to increase in population and unfavorable environmental changes the capacity of agriculture and livestock to produce livelihood for the people has reduced. Now, people have to be educated to survive in the economy of Balochistan, especially in the urban centers. Lack of education prevents the people from taking advantage of limited livelihood opportunities in the province and that in turn kicks off the vicious cycle of poverty in the province.
Likewise, illiteracy can also be attributed to the growing rate of crimes in the province. During the period of 2008-13 Balochistan saw a sharp rise in crimes all over the province. Day light robberies, highway robberies and car lifting from city centers were normal routine. There were certain other security related factors which caused that trouble but illiteracy was one of the main contributing factors. The crime economy provided the illiterate people an opportunity to earn livelihood for them and this fact can’t be denied. At the present moment the crimes have been controlled but it’s due to tightening of the security situation and not that people have become literate.
Shah Jahan Baloch is the focal person for education for Action Aid. He has over ten years of experience in the field of education and has worked in Balochistan for most of that time. He believes that not only there is lack of educational opportunities for children at primary level but there are serious flaws in educational system. “Basic concept of learning and proper standardized early education facilities as a part of holistic child development are missing in Balochistan,” he said.
Mr. Baloch argues that Education in Balochistan is not linked with its economy and its future prospects like livestock and agriculture are not linked at school and college level. He believes that its one of the reason that underprivileged children do not find any incentive in education.
He further added that the existing system of education is just a factory for producing unskilled and paper degree holders to contribute in population of unemployed community waiting for miracles to happen and get jobs in government sector.
Aziz Ahmad Jamali is the Additional Secretary Education for government of Balochistan. He is quite optimistic about education in Balochistan. He believes that recently drafted and approved Balochistan Education Sector Plan (2013-18) has a framework that will be used to improve status of education in Balochistan. He states that the education sector plan clearly brings out Access & Equity, Governance and Quality as major areas for improvement. Mr. Jamali also claims that the government has accorded significant priority to Education vis a vis budget allocations and especially in development budget.
Asfandyar Khan is the Project Director of Global Partnership for Education, Balochistan Education Project (GPE-BEP). Its 4 Billion rupees Work Bank sponsored project that focuses on improving and establishing quality primary schools in the province. He said that Establishment of District Education Group (DEG) and District Education Authority (DEA) in Districts is a good step towards good governance, where authority is transferred to districts education managers. He believes that this delegation of power will solve education administrative problems.
Mr. Khan who has a degree in Education Management from Kings College London, laments that there is no professional development program for in-service, pre-service training of teachers. Time Scale is biggest ill of Education sector which results in draining billions of Rupees. He revealed that 29 billion rupees are spent on the salaries of government teachers in Balochistan annually.
Shedding light on the project that he is running, Mr. Khan said “GPE-BEP project is working for improvement of existing public schools, within the system and develop processes, which can be replicated to support reforms in the overall Education System.”
Javeria Tareen is a social worker who focuses on different social issues in Balochistan including girl’s education. She believes that girls are the biggest victim of prevailing education scenario in the province. She argues that few females who acquire higher education also aspire to become JV Teachers. “Education particularly female education has been criminally ignored by successive governments in Balochistan,” added Miss Tareen.
Government of Balochistan has taken different steps in last couple of years which are encouraging and can be considered steps in right direction. The starting point of these steps was declaration of educational emergency in the province. Although educational emergency was a political gimmick used by Dr. Malik and team but some steps taken in its garb are really encouraging.
The good steps taken by the government include increasing the education budget to 20 percent of the total budget which is indeed a good move. Apart from that education department of the province has declared all the primary schools of the province as gender free. It has also been announced that in future only female staff would be hired for primary schools. This move is aimed at increasing the enrollment in primary schools in future.
In addition to that government of Balochistan has introduced Education Management Information System (EMIS). This system is a database comprising of Information regarding Teachers, with their name, Identity cards, photographs and all the data is accessible on website. EMIS has been designed to curb absenteeism, ghost teachers and ghost schools. Through EMIS Education Department has identified more than 900 un-accounted for schools and more than 10,000 un-registered teachers so far.
Despite the positive steps taken by government of Balochistan so far there is a lot to be done. Mr. Shah Jahan Baloch believes that the overall policy framework of primary education should be restructured. “Leadership management of primary education to handed over to the women.” Mr. Jamali believes that more efforts are required to focus on capacity building of education managers and teachers and assessing the education system based on standard learning outcomes. Javeria Tareen recommends that more focus should be on female enrolment which will trigger an acceptance for education in overall society.
Role of media in improving education system in Balochistan is also very important. These days online news media is helping the education department in highlight educational problems which are then sorted out. Similarly, mainstream electronic media can also focus more on educational problems of the province. That would not only sensitize the masses about the educational problems but also put pressure on the government to take action. Media can also be helpful in removing misconceptions about the negative stereotypes against female education.
It’s a fact that the situation of education in Balochistan is not very promising. There are numerous flaws and problems which will take years to rectify. Government of Balochistan has recently taken a lot of positive steps to help improve education in the province which is commendable. However the result of those steps will take years to materialize and the steps of government should not be criticized immaturely. However both media and civil society need to build up the pressure on government and compel them to work for improvement of education on war footings.
Courtesy: This article was originally published in the Education special edition of The News International
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