SEVENTY-ONE per cent of Pakistanis live in rural areas. This applies to Balochistan too, where the most population live in non-urban settings. This is where we find the education system lacking.

What is worse is that people do not necessarily know how education can impact or change their lives. They think it is a waste of time to send their children to school. These villagers are mostly occupied with making ends meet each day and worry about making money for two square meals a day. To achieve this, they also ask their children to work.

Where there are schools, there are no teachers. If there are teachers, they do not perform their duty the way they should and are under-qualified. How can we expect these underprivileged people to send their children to school if this is the state of affairs?

More importantly, the government never conducts counselling of the people about education and its impact in these areas. The higher authorities just pass the bill and money for the construction of schools but never monitor if the job is done.

The authorities here receive funds, make one to two classrooms and hire their own people as teachers who have never seen the inside of a classroom during their employment. Such teachers just come and receive salaries.

This issue is also linked to child marriage. After dropping out of school, children go to work to earn for the family. When their parents notice that their children are bringing in money they feel it is time to marry them off. And they marry them with girls of their ages. Unluckily, the married children are always between the ages of nine and 16.

Research shows early marriage leads to depression and ill health. Recently three grooms of a village near Turbat committed suicide one year after their marriage. Their ages were 11, 12 and 13. It is the fundamental right of every citizen to get an education but we are not getting it in our rural areas.

Muhammad Waqas Khan
Dera Ismail Khan

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2020