ISLAMABAD: Over 80 per cent of Pakistanis do not have access to a library and another 60pc were without playgrounds, res­u­l­ting in very low social and civic engagement, acc­ording to new research by a government-run think tank.

“A vast majority of Pakistanis (83pc) do not have access to any library, with only a tiny proportion (4.5pc) being very happy with the one they can access,” said the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (Pide) in its research paper “Shaping Minds and Bodies: Do We Have the Facilities”.

Pide’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Dr Durre Nayab said the access to a library remained low for both males and females but the latter had more inadequate access for all age groups.

“If people rarely engaged socially, how will they keep themselves mentally and physically alive?” she questioned.

Pide report says youth left without avenues for mind nurturing, recreational activities

She said it’s not that other ages do not need libraries or playgrounds, but with the number of youth present in the country, the importance of having facilities where the young can shape and nourish their minds and bodies become all the more important.

She argued that libraries contribute to building communities and public libraries could provide education to those who otherwise cannot afford it.

The research found that nearly two-thirds of the urban population (62pc) does not have access to any sort of library, while only a minuscule proportion has access in the rural areas (4.7pc).

Among the four provinces, Balochistan came out better than others. Accessibility in KP was the least, with almost 94pc having no access to a library, followed by 84pc in Punjab, 76.1pc in Sindh and 72.3pc in Balochistan. Among the territories, 81pc of people in Islamabad have no access to a library, better than GB’s 83pc and 87pc in AJK. Even in areas where people reported having access to some kind of library, those very happy with the facility remained low.

Dr Nayab elaborated that the report only quantified the reported access. There’s every possibility that even in cases where libraries exist, they could remain inaccessible for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons can be the awareness about its presence, distance to the facility, working hours and gender-exclusivity or inclusivity.

While the research showed that education improved a person’s reported accessibility to a library, education can also bring awareness and information, which a person without it can lack.

The presence of a facility can remain unknown to a person who is not interested in it or lacks knowledge about its existence. Additionally, accessibility to a library increases with increasing educational levels, while increasing income levels does not improve accessibility to a library by any significant margin. It is only for the highest income quantile that we see an observable decline in those reporting not having access to any kind of library — 73.4pc as opposed to 85.5pc for the lowest quintile.

Access to playgrounds

The research showed 60pc Pakistanis have no playground access. While one-third of the urban population lacked access to a playground, the proportion was three-fourths for rural people.

Along with low accessibility, satisfaction — expressed in unhappy or very unhappy responses — too was much lower in the rural areas.

In terms of access to playgrounds, Punjab fared the best among the four provinces, followed by Balochistan and Sindh. KP showed the highest proportion of people without access to a playground (67.8pc). GB continued to show better trends than other territories, having the lowest proportion of those not having access to a playground (46.3pc). AJK lagged behind, with 62.3pc needing more access to a playground.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2023