Saddam Shah
Only knowing that the province has an emerging port of Gwadar, mountains blessed with Copper and Gold and Coal mines, Natural Gas, precious and valuable stones, oil and chromite and many more minerals, is not sufficient. The actual reality is that Balochistan with having nearly six percent population and forty-three percent territory of Pakistan, has the lowest human resource as compared to other provinces and that could be better argued in a sense that the first university of Balochistan was established in the 1970s.
Skillful, technical, educated and aware people are the actual resource since the industrial revolution in Europe, it is not gold that brings prosperity but the skill to utilize it, an idea to give it vision and struggle to transform that in practical form.
Balochistan may have much then it needs but what it basically lacks is men resource with a vision and practicality and that comes through education
It is rightly said that not a nuclear bomb but allowing cheating in examination system is enough to destroy a nation and as Chris Hedges asserts “We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.” It exactly suits the slowly improving education system of the province, including its capital.
Though for a common citizen of least literate province, education is having a degree from anywhere you avail and whatever the way you opt to get it, which is never actual education but maybe a tag of graduation, whereas proper and quality education is about socialization, being updated, qualitative teaching and learning methods, skills that cover need of twenty-first century, equipping with multidisciplinary approach, lots of career counseling and foremost, blessing with a vision of life and perceiving its extraordinary purpose with committed ambitions. But is Balochistan witnessing such education system? Obviously, at least not yet.
Peace education, practical education of administrative affairs to regulate forty three percent tough territory with only six percent population, education of social entrepreneurship to enhance economic activities that would leverage the common people with lots of opportunities, education of social activism to involve entire community and discouraging violence and bloodshed with volunteer work for the good of society in all forms, critical mindset to challenge status-quo and looking for new innovative ways to minimize issues of the province are also necessary to be the mandatory part of education in Balochistan.
Reliance on blaming merely the government is not a solution, rather a shameful excuse for weakness. It is the same people of the province, working both in public and private sectors, that should be blamed for their incapability
Unless we know the actual factors of numerous issues of the province, one may not dare to think of its solutions. Hence, promoting research culture in the education system of Balochistan is highly needed to analyze and recommend a way forward. Such research culture in academia would also serve when graduates join their professional career to incline the efficiency of such departments.
There is an appreciable number of students from Balochistan studying in other parts of the country and those can very positively impact the development of the province in near future, on a condition if the government creates a conducive environment for them and lots of opportunities, fulfilling their financial needs. Slow impacts of students studying outside the province, having national and international exposure, would contribute their learning but for that government should be more active and welcoming.
Institutional development is though needed in the entire country but much more in Balochistan, where people understand government budget as something else rather than their collective wealth. This conscious comes through awareness and that is possible through quality education
Though there are number of unemployed youth but that is less because of unemployment and more because of having only degrees rather skills of such fields and that is why the only province which cannot fill its twelve seats in civil superior services every year, which is considered the most respectable career among the graduates of entire country. The absence of mentoring and career counseling has created an environment of enormous drop-out and underemployment, where even university graduates don’t know what exactly they should opt for career?
That is only education which keeps a person updated of present happenings of the country and of the world in whole. So, educated people of the province would think globally and look for a way to act locally by challenging the status-quo of exclusiveness of traditionalism without promoting chaos.
Inculcating the qualities of leadership in youth of province is much more than necessary and for that government needs to devise number of plans to provide opportunities for the students to learn by exchange programs, providing the opportunities of both national and international exposures, so that, they return with energy and dedication for serving their society and initiate it with community involvement on larger scale, a sort of mainstreaming educated youth with unschooled citizens for better understanding and coordination, as a spillover effects of educated youth on entire society.
One can be optimistic about the Balochistan, as a lot has been done. But at the same, if challenges are analyzed, much more is still needed to be done
Though this provincial government has put its marvelous efforts in the education sector by increasing education budget up to twenty-five percent and founding new schools, colleges and campuses of universities but these efforts should be sustainable and result-oriented. It may also be harmful if a large number of graduates with low-quality education are produced, resulting in unemployment, as that can stimulate problems furthermore in the province.
The writer belongs to Quetta and He is Studying Defence and Strategic Studies at QAU, Islamabad. Area of Interest of the writer includes Politics and Socio-economics developments of Balochistan, South Asian Politics, Non-State Actors, Terrorism and CT strategy, Globalization and Cyberwarfare. Follow him on Twitter @Saddam_Shah98.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
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