Only ten percent of rural women receive schooling in Balochistan |
SIBI, 5 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - Amna, Qudsia and Areeba look no
different to other Pakistani schoolgirls. The trio of nine-year-olds with neatly
braided hair and pressed uniforms giggle at a private joke as they walk through
the gates of their school in the town of Sibi in Balochistan
Province.
However, in the context of Balochistan, Pakistan's least
developed province, they are unusual: they are among the very few girls who go
to school.
Balochistan's female literacy rates are among the lowest in
the world, with most girls not enrolled in a school. The province's literacy
level - 37 percent - lags behind that of Pakistan's three other provinces and
the national average of 53 percent.
Analyst Syed Fazl-e-Haider, a
columnist with the Dawn English weekly newspaper based in the capital,
Islamabad, estimated last month that the rural literacy rate in the province
stood at no more than 23 percent.
The literacy rate for Balochistan's
women was estimated at 20 percent, with only 10 percent of rural women receiving
schooling. The Society for Community Support for Primary Education in
Balochistan, an NGO, estimated that the female literacy rate in rural
Balochistan increased from only 1.5 percent in 1992 to 8.9 percent in
1998.
"Some districts in Balochistan have among the lowest enrolment and
literacy rates in the world, with one district recording only two percent
enrolment at the primary [school] level," Naveed Hassan Naqvi, a World Bank
education economist who also heads the Balochistan education support project,
said.
The project has helped provide a US $22 million loan to set up
community schools targeting girls.
But observers said there were
numerous challenges to bringing the province level with other parts of Pakistan.
Social attitudes were a problem but the ongoing conflict between the Pakistani
military and local tribes was also detrimental.
The Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said fighting that flared in the Dera Bugti and
Kohlu districts southeast of the province's capital, Quetta, late last year had
killed at least 300 and forced thousands to flee. Children's education had been
disrupted for at least six months. The fighting had eased but many families had
yet to return.
"We moved to Sibi eight years ago from our village in the
Dera Bugti district because there were no schools there and we wanted our
children to be educated," Akbar Ahmed, 34, whose three children attend school in
the town, said.
Elsewhere, law and order issues provided more problems.
HRCP said there had been increased reports of highway robbery, vehicle theft and
kidnapping.
Pakistan's government blames feudal leaders for the
province’s backwardness.
"Feudal chiefs who hold back development for
their own purposes will not be tolerated," Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf
said recently.
However, many people in Balochistan believe the issue is
more complex. They blame the lack of development and extreme poverty on the
authorities and accuse them of failing to grant the province control over its
considerable natural resources. Balochistan contains 90 percent of the country's
natural gas.
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