Balochistan is the biggest province of Pakistan with a population of around 12.34 millions. It contains a large amount of land mass, but it suffers to a great part too. It is even considered to be the richest province in terms of natural resources in Pakistan, but still is not developed in terms of quality education.
The educational crisis in Balochistan have been stemmed from a long ago. It is partially destroyed because of the government which is paying least attention to enhancing the quality of education. On the other hand, the illiterate citizens, who never ask the government for anything, but cast their votes with great pride, are also responsible.
Unfortunately, the literacy rate in Balochistan is only 39 per cent as per a report. Mostly the people of rural areas are suffering from a fatal disease of absenteeism of teachers in governmental institutions. They lack proper white boards and markers (even some schools till date use chalks), boundaries, classrooms, sanitation etc.
It is really painful to pen down that only in Balochistan about more than 2.3 million children, including boys and girls, are out of schools, whereas only 1.1 million children receive primary schooling. In fact, half of the school-going-children refrain from the study after matriculation because of poverty and other educational obstacles. It ultimately results in a growing ratio of unemployment in the province.
According to a report of Alif Ailan, there are 11,627 primary schools registered in Balochistan, 1,271 middle schools and 947 high schools. There are many schools that are very far from the students living in villages. Although they do intend to get education, but they miss it because they cannot afford to go to far areas for studying.
Sadly, ghost teachers are a very serious threat to our educational system. It is estimated that in Balochistan there are more than 5000 ghost teachers. They are not giving duties in the schools but getting their wages regularly. Just because of them a thousand of students’ educational careers are getting into waste water.
However, it is really depressing to know that in an era where all the people are turning to the moon for life, we are still given an education system that gives nothing but takes everything from us.
Finally, it is high time we had equally participated in bringing changes in our educational system. Balochistan needs to touch the development in education. Government needs to establish new schools for promoting education and bringing better and trained teachers who should teach the students correctly.
There needs to be awareness campaigns for the children who are out of schools. Instead of spending money on other big projects in Balochistan, they are supposed to bring out of school children back into schools. Not only the students are to be brought back into schools, but also the government needs to pay attention for a quality education system in the province.
