Education is the most powerful weapon which changes life from the darkness to the sparkling stars. The world has been shaped into new and beautiful locations because of educational development, but in the current scenario, COVID-19 has brought scares to people’s hearts, almost every country of the world is suffering due to the pandemic and its causes.
In fact, Pakistan, like the world, has been suffering from everyday new cases and lockdown seasons. It is the second wave of COVID-19 which is spreading to the provinces of Pakistan rapidly, whereupon, the government has ordered a lockdown of educational institutions, which is a very misfortune since the year has been demolished without the gain of proper knowledge and educational curriculum.
However, Balochistan, known to be the largest province of Pakistan by area with seven divisions and 33 districts, is facing the pandemic situation with the fewest facilities. The hospitals lack the basic testing materials along with systematic machinery. Life has become threatened once again due to the dangerous microbial on which people are dying because of its causative agents.
Recently, the education minister Shafqat Mehmood ordered that the overall education must be stopped from 26th of November, 2020, to January 11, 2021. Further in the notification, it was asked to continue education with online education, which is extremely unfortunate to all of the backward areas of Balochistan where internet services are out of reach to its people. In such situations, how would they be able to continue their studies through online classes?
Apart from this, the decision of only closing the education sector is awful and purposeless because opening the bazaar and markets are not as important as the education is since the institutional students can follow the Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs] as compared to the common public.
Technologically, countries have been developed where hundreds to thousands of works are being accomplished within the minutes but unfortunately, Balochistan has far from the access of internet. 4G and 5G are in their places, we cannot even reach to 2G services in most areas of Balochistan. We won’t be able to search when confusion circulates in minds. The question would arise: how is that possible to attend online classes when living in Balochistan?
On the other side, the people of Balochistan suffer more educationally than the other provinces of Pakistan. So, the Government of Pakistan and the authorized persons must think twice while taking such illogical decisions in which institutions are off instead of the crowded areas of the bazaar and markets. This exactly will be counted as a loss of year but not to the developed areas of Pakistan and the world as rest, other than Balochistan.
Sorrowfully, Balochistan suffers many more, too, educationally, confidentially, economically and the poor people would become sequence to face such tragic accidents. The Government must take it deeply while advertising the notifications for closing all public universities of Balochistan and Pakistan though education is what introduces life segment to develop one’s personality, providing quality education.
