IN big cities like Karachi or Lahore it might be easy to ensure that girls and boys have an equal access to education. However, in rural parts of Sindh, this is not so. Many parents, while they want to send their daughters to school, don’t because the schools do not have proper classrooms, bathrooms and other basic facilities.

Higher education is difficult to complete as many areas might have primary schools, but not secondary and higher secondary schools or colleges.

In Umerkot, for example, parents might send their daughters to primary school but they pull them out after third or fourth grade.

Boys and girls in Umerkot sometimes have to walk more than eight kilometres with heavy school bags stuffed with books, lunch boxes and water bottles.

There are 2,316 schools in Umerkot district with 82,750 boys and 47,000 girls enrolled, according to a report in 2009-10 undertaken by the Sindh Education Management Information System in collaboration with the Reform Unit of Education Department.

There is one elementary school, 463 primary, 14 middle, 14 secondary and four higher secondary schools for boys as against one elementary, 427 primary, 12 middle, 11 secondary and two higher secondary schools for girls.

Some 2,304 schools out of total 2,316 have no science laboratory, 2,301 are without libraries, 2,111 sans power supply, 2,014 lack playgrounds, 1,193 without boundary walls and 990 bereft of any toilets.

Rana Malhi

Umerkot

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2019