QUETTA: Educationists and experts have underscored the need to rebuild educational infrastructure in Balochistan in the aftermath of floods to ensure continual access to education in the wake of the disaster that left most of the province in a state of emergency.

These views were shared on Saturday during an online seminar titled ‘Defending Education against Climate Change,’ organised by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training’s STEAM Policy Unit.

The panelists proposed effective public-private partnership models, the development and implementation of a comprehensive remedial and accelerated learning programme, and an international commitment to rebuild the destroyed educational infrastructure on an immediate basis to mitigate the impacts of climate disasters on the education sector.

“From our conversations with the Punjab Education Department, we know that it takes around Rs12 million to rebuild one school. This means we need Rs216 billion to rebuild 18,000 schools destroyed in the recent floods,” said education expert Javed Ahmed Malik.

Focusing on the infrastructural damages and the looming spectre of learning losses, activist Moiz Hussain shared 3.5 million children were affected by the floods. STEAM Policy Unit head Salman Naveed Khan pointed out that the process of rehabilitation was often considerably slow and even staggered.

Climate change expert Afia Salam said the school-going girls were particularly vulnerable to the calamity and added that if “we don’t act swiftly, girls, as always, will have far bleaker chances of ever resuming education than boys”.

Fozia Parveen, an assistant professor at Aga Khan Uni­versity, stressed that climate education should also focus on practical skills which can effectively help a community protect itself during a crisis caused by climate change.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2022