UPPER DIR: Concern over delay in starting girls’ college classes
By Syed Zahid Jan
UPPER DIR, Oct 28: Classes in the much-needed Government Girls’ Degree College, Upper Dir, are yet to be started even though interviews of would-be students were completed a month ago. This has created innumerable problems for hundreds of girl students.
Upper Dir is lagging behind other districts in education, particularly for girls, due to lack of interest on the part of successive governments despite tall claims.
Thanks to former NWFP Governor Lt-Gen (retd) Iftikhar Hussain Shah, who announced construction of a girls’ degree college in Dir following consistent demands of the people, a college has been built in the area. But classes are yet to commence despite demands from parents.
In the first week of Ramazan, the provincial government directed the acting principal of Degree College, Dir Upper, to interview candidates and grant admission to 40 students, 20 each in arts and science, in first year after strong protest from the people.
About 150 girls’ students seeking admissions in the first year turned up for interview in Ramazan and the final list was prepared and sent to the Director of Colleges.
“The Director of Colleges is cheating the people of Upper Dir as he seems to be disinterested and insincere in starting the classes in the said college,” a source involved in the process apprehended.
The sources said the Public Service Commission had recently made appointments of female lecturers and classes could be commenced if some lecturers were posted to the female college of Upper Dir.
It was learnt that admissions in third and fourth years have also opened, but in Upper Dir students would remain deprived of admissions due to lack of interest by the government in opening the college.
“The government should have shown expeditiousness in providing an opportunity to female students to attain education but it is unmoved and we the people are begging it for the basic right of our children,” said Mohammad Rashid, a prominent lawyer.
The indifference of the government can be gauged
from the fact that intermediate classes could not be started in the lone Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Dir Upper, despite construction of its building in 1998.
Some statistics suggest the terrible state of education in the border district. The district is now ranked at 22nd position in education in NWFP out of 24 districts with a dismal literacy rate of 21 per cent. The female literacy rate stands at appalling 6.1 per cent.
Condition in Kohistan, comprised seven union councils, is more alarming as only 7 per cent literacy rate with 0.5 in female could be achieved.
Forty girls’ primary schools, most of them in Kohistan, were closed thanks to lack of female teachers but the Unicef did a tremendous job by making these schools functional by providing teachers.
The area has even no high school for girls. The number of out-of-school children in the district has increased to 105,458 from 103,377 out of which 55,346 are females.
The majority of the out-of-school children are working in markets and in fields. Another hard fact is that the dropout rate has also surpassed 45 per cent while that in female is further high.
For 680,000 population of the district, there are 203 girls’ primary schools, 653 male primary schools, 23 girls’ middle schools, 73 middle schools for boys, only 3 girls’ high schools, 32 high schools for boys and 2 higher secondary schools.
The girls have little access to education, as there is no Intermediate or Degree College for women in the district due to which girl students are forced to abandon higher education.
The lone high school for girls in Dir town is jam-packed with students while still more and more throng the school to attain education.
Only three high schools for girls in the entire district expose the ostensible seriousness of the government for improvement of education.
There are 318,151 illiterate women in the district out 338,459 as only 20,308 are literate, which include those who can barely read a newspaper. The number of literate men in the district is 92,216 and the illiterate is 249,325.
