WUNRN
Please see 4 parts of this
WUNRN release on gender, literacy, education in Pakistan.
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Photo: Claire Mc Evoy/IRIN
Only ten percent or rural women
receive schooling in Balochistan.
PAKISTAN: Balochistan’s Girls Miss Out on Education
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PAKISTAN: Low Literacy Rates Hamper Health, Welfare
8
May 2008 (IRIN
"According
to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), literacy
still stands at only 50 percent in Pakistan. In
Balochistan, the least developed province, levels slump to 36 percent. Only 27
percent of women in the province, according to the government’s National
Economic Survey of 2007, are literate, compared to a national average of around
45 percent, according to official data."
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PAKISTAN:
Women Battle to Gain Voice Through Literacy Drive
LAHORE, 26 December 2007 (IRIN) - With
Pakistan’s female adult literacy rate as low as 36 percent, according to the
UN, Shahida, married with a one year-old daughter, believes it is up to the
women in her community to bring about change, if not for themselves, then for
their daughters.
“Otherwise their lives will be just like ours,” Shahida,
20, said.
She is among two dozen women huddled together on the
floor of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) literacy centre
in Jiya Bagha, a farming village, outside Lahore, the provincial capital of
Pakistan’s populous Punjab Province, to learn the nuances of teaching adults
how to read and write.
These women - some as old as 55-year-old Zaibunnisa, who
has three children in their early twenties, and others like unmarried Bushra or
Shamim - come each day to learn how to teach other adult women in their community
how to read and write.
The NCHD was formed in 2002 by Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf to support government departments in areas of education,
literacy and the provision of basic healthcare services.
With a corporate-like, public-private partnership-approach,
the commission was formed to find innovative solutions to meeting the ambitious
targets of the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) by 2015.
Overall there are 55 million illiterates in Pakistan and
with an additional three million being added to this pool annually, achieving
the MDGs will prove a major challenge.
NCHD aims to accelerate the literacy rate by 3.3 percent
per year to achieve Goal 4 - from the current 53 percent (2006) to 86 percent
by the year (2015).
Apart from training literate females to impart reading
and writing skills to others, the commission has also established over 41,000
literacy centres nationwide from which over 100,000 women have so far
benefited.
“The emphasis is on cultural relevance and
functionality. They should be able to read the newspaper in the local language,
write a simple letter and be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide up to
three figures,” said the NCHD’s Aamir Bilal.
Uphill struggle
Bushra, who commutes to Lahore every day to study in an
engineering college, knows all too well the travails of learning. “I literally
had to fight my way through education,” she said. There is only one girls’
school in her community and that goes up to grade10.
“Transport is another problem - and why many of my
friends had to discontinue education. Many families did not allow this long
commute by public transport.”
Meanwhile, Kausar Naseem, Bushra’s friend, has opted for
distance-learning to complete her Master’s degree through Allam Iqbal Open
University, after she completed her bachelor’s as a private student. “I’d have
liked to go to college, experience the life there, but I have to be content
with this,” Naseem, 23, said.
Yet while the little town of Jiya Bagha may be just a stone’s
throw from Lahore - known for its fine educational institutions, according to
Sheeba - “the love for seeking education has not trickled down to our town,”
she added.
She continues: “The mind-set is very narrow. Our men,
who have forever been agriculturalists and owners, think that because there is
no reason for women to work outside the homes, there is no need for them to
study.”
And according to experts, her revelation is not new. In
many traditional societies, family and community attitudes towards female
literacy remain hostile.
“It seems we’re left stranded in some warped time
capsule; I, for one, would definitely want my children to come out of it and
breathe the fresh air,” said Shahida.
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For copies of the FULL DOCUMENT (92 pages) please send request to WUNRN - mosie@infionline.net
Excerpts
relating to Equity in Education and Gender and Education:
EDUCATION IN
A WHITE PAPER
DOCUMENT TO DEBATE AND FINALIZE THE
NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY
December 2006
PREPARED BY
JAVED HASAN ALY
NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY REVIEW TEAM
This
White Paper is intended to stimulate discussion of major policy issues concerning
Education Sector in
7. Equity
7.1 Definition, Scope
and Context
The concept of equity
goes beyond equality of opportunity, where everyone is treated the same, to fostering
a bias-free environment where individuals benefit equally. It recognizes that
some people require additional and specialized support in order to achieve
equal benefits. Equity in education, therefore, would take
into consideration not only equal access to education of a particular standard, but the
contents of curriculum, instructional and evaluation materials and practices,
different ways of learning and views of knowledge, and everyone having
the opportunity to achieve.
According to the
Convention Against Discrimination in Education adapted by UNESCO in 1960, any distinction,
exclusion, limitation or preference which, being based on race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
economic condition or birth, as the purpose or effect of
nullifying or impairing equality of treatment in education is tantamount to discrimination.
This refers to all types and levels of education and includes access to
education, the standard and quality of education, and the conditions under which
it is given.
The Convention against
Discrimination in Education has not been ratified by
We need to look at both
equality and equity in public and private education, focusing on institutions and
students. It is our purpose to address issues of gender, economic and
geographic disparities, parallel systems of education and medium of
instruction, especially teaching of the English language.
7.2 Gender and Education:
The educational status of women in
Bachelor’s degree and
1.4% achieved a Master’s degree. 60% of the female adult population is
illiterate. Of the 3.3 million out of school children, 2.503 million are girls.
73.6% of primary age girls attend school, compared with 92.1% of boys.
Moreover, a sizeable majority of rural girls drop out of primary schools.
Women in
Although education has
been seen to add value to a female worker, increase her productivity and make
her less vulnerable to violence or harassment, it is often the economic
productivity and security that are given as reasons that are used to hold girls
back from schooling. Poor families allocate scarce resources to their sons’
education, expecting higher economic returns. Cultural limitations discourage
parents from sending their daughters to mixed gender schools. However, the
problem is not just of demand. There have been situations where girls are
enrolled in boys’ schools even upto matric level, indicating that supply of
quality girls schooling is falling short. Similarly poor physical environment
or lack of basic facilities in schools also discourages parents from sending
their girls to schools. To remove these supply side blockages, unwavering
support and coordination between all stakeholders (politicians, bureaucrats,
government departments, planners, implementers and community organizations) is
required. Right from 1947 till 1998 the emphasis on girls education finds due
articulations in the policy documents but the physical targets were not matched
with financial and social investment in the cause of female education and hence
the appalling state in which the underprivileged women of
7.3 Policy
Recommendations:
1. Compulsory and free
primary education of girls by 2010; free secondary education with progressive
targets setting by 2020.
2. Hiring of teachers
and teachers training should be oriented towards reducing gender gaps.
3. Additional resources
for provinces with wider gender gaps.
4. Continuous linkages
between federal, provincial Education Departments and research organizations
for gender disaggregated data and analysis so it can inform policy inputs.
5. Establish realistic
and attainable specific goals.
6. Set up more powerful
gender groups in the Ministry of Education.
7. Have committed fund allocations and human resources to implement and monitor progress towards goals and introduce a monitoring checklist. Greater emphasis should be placed on vocational training and technical education for women.
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