19 February 2004	Thursday	27 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 18: Poor school infrastructure, lack of female teachers, social insecurity and poverty are among main constraints in the promotion of female primary education in the districts of Sindh.

This was disclosed by the researchers of Sindh Education Foundation while giving the details of their study at the technical session of a two-day workshop on "Addressing Gender Disparity in Primary and Secondary Education" here on Wednesday.

The workshop was organized by the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The SEF researchers said that during a situational analysis of the communities and study of the existing structure and quality of government primary girls schools in the five selected districts, they came to know that spending on copies, textbooks uniforms, stationary and transport were still barriers to education of girls.

The survey revealed that 28 per cent female students of school going population wanted to pursue secondary education in the districts surveyed (Jacobabad, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Thatta).

The researchers said that keeping in view the results of the survey, there was a need to establish more secondary schools in the said districts. In their presentation, two research associates of SEF, Faiza Ghulam Nabi and Saima Pervez, stated that though the overall participation rate of boys and girls (age group 5-9 years) in primary education was not very much different from that of other places in the province, there was a dire need to increase the participation rate in the districts in question.

It was said that people did not send their daughters to schools, as primary schools were not available within a radius of three kilometres from their residences, while sending to farther areas involved sense of insecurity for their children.

They said that about 65 per cent of the girls in the five districts were out of schools because their community or family did not allow them; poverty or lack of resources; engaged in household responsibilities; and lack of schools for girls.

Moreover, the cliches like 'female education is useless' were the main hurdles against the education of girls in these districts, they added. In addition to constraints like poverty as well as social and household taboos, poor school infrastructure like lack of water, electricity, classrooms were also obstacles.

They suggested that establishment of strong accountability mechanism at all levels through regular monitoring of all activities would help promoting girls' education.

The research and study reports pertaining to a period of eight months ending October 2003 recommended to uplift the school infrastructure for provision of learning environment to girls; develop innovative and cost-effective programmes to involve communities and parents in the process of girls' education; train matriculated girls from the communities to teach other girls in their areas, develop advocacy campaigns to prioritize girls' education both at primary and secondary levels.

In his presentation, T.M. Qureshi of the Ministry of Education, Islamabad, mentioned the incentives being given for promoting girls' education in the province like school nutrition, scholarships for rural girls, free textbooks and fellowships programmes.

Mahine Ahmad of NGO Resource Centre discussed the gender concepts, forms of gender discrimination, role and activities of women in development. Another researcher from NGO Resource Centre, Mohammad Anwar, shared his findings of a study on gender preferences in education in rural and urban areas, i.e. Shahdadpur and Karachi.

He said that family attitudes, environment at educational institutions, portray of women and girls and educational achievement of girls were found almost the same both in rural and urban areas.

Earlier, addressing the inaugural session, Sindh Secretary Education Ghulam Ali Shah Pasha said that the number of children, who were not enrolled with any school in the province, was over three million while over 1.8 million among these children were girls, adds PPI.

He said that the government with financial assistance of donor agencies was providing scholarships, meals, milk, snacks, insurance coverage and even money to parents for sending their daughters to schools.

However, Mr Pasha said that more steps should be taken for the elimination of gender inequality. He also urged private sector, non-governmental organizations and Ulema to come forward and play their role in eliminating gender disparity.

The secretary said that the government had adopted a multi- prong strategy to convince parents by launching public awareness campaigns. He said that remarkable results had been achieved and female enrolment had touched almost 50 per cent in many schools in the province.

The UNESCO Programme Specialist, Hassan A. Keynan, deplored that tall and hollow promises were being made by governments at international and national conferences, but, they were not doing much to fulfil their promises.

He said that around 54 out of 128 countries were at serious risk of not achieving gender disparity in primary and secondary education by the year 2015. Mr Hassan said, "Girls are held back and not encouraged to get education due to a few constraints in family and society.

The situation aggravates as girls' specific needs are not taken into account at schools and their achievements are not considered at national level," he added.

He said that the UNESCO was ready to provide technical assistance for provision of quality education and teachers' training in Pakistan.

Delivering the keynote address on "Reducing Gender Disparity in Education", Managing Director SEF Prof Anita Ghulam Ali stressed on discussing the accessibility, infrastructure, enabling environment, incentives, quality of education, communication skills of teachers that would alert parental choice. "It is imperative that parents are convinced that education is a human right and an educated girl is an asset," she said.

She was of the view that there was a need to raise women empowerment, especially in rural areas. In this regard, she added, creating awareness and understanding of women education were immensely important.

"Currently, women comprise 33 per cent of total strength of national, provincial assemblies and the senate besides district assemblies. However, we know that unfortunately majority are not the actual representatives of common women folk in the country," she opined.

Urging government functionaries, NGOs and the people working for gender parity and female education, she said all the stakeholders should play their role more effectively and if they had committed some mistakes, they should realize them and try to improve their performance.