A universal, comprehensive, equal and inclusive education for
all is one of the most important Sustainable Development Goal. There is an
undeniable consensus, globally and nationally, to ensure equitable quality
education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education is the
fundamental human right and is inseparable from the sustainable growth and
development of a nation. There is a collective effort worldwide to ensure, by
the year 2030, globally all girls’ and boys’ complete free, equitable and
quality primary and secondary education, which will eventually lead to relevant
and effective learning outcomes. In order for any country to achieve this goal,
all the relevant stakeholders need to collectively contribute to foster forward
the education of girls.Educating a young girl amounts to educating a family.Only
through education and enlightenment will a nation be able to advance the quality
of life, empower women, combat extremism, poverty, climate change and the
inequalities in the world.Pakistan has its own peculiar set of challenges and
unfortunately it is one of the worst in the world in terms of providing
effective& quality education. According to the constitution of Pakistan, the
Article 25-A guarantees theright and access to education for all. Despite the
constitutional provisions, nearly 25 million children nationwide are still out
of school and 55 % of them are girls.
For Pakistan, there are layers of structural challenges that limit girl’s
ability and opportunity to exercise their right to free and compulsory
education. Most widely talked about are the socio-cultural attitudes of parents
in communities where girlsare discriminated, and their education is not
considered as valued addition to this entrenched patriarchal society. This led
to de-prioritizing girls’ education when intersect with state of poverty.
Indeed, overall architecture of education displays a gender bias in multiple
ways, fed by widespread stereotypes, social norms and practices which perpetuate
discrimination against girls.
Another challenge is related to financing education. Government’s insufficient
educational budgeting,lack of transparency and accountability is also one of the
major causes behind low level of education and literacy. UNESCO recommends that
a minimum of 20% of the national budget (and/or 6% of GDP) should be spent on
education. On average, in low income countries only 17% of public revenue (or
3.7% of GDP) is spent on education. It is a major challenge in Pakistan, as
public spending on education is less than 2.5% of GDP, which is much lower than
the 7% of GDP as committed in National Education Policy. Ontop of this, gender
disparities are also observable in planning and budgeting. The failure to
mobilise enough resources is leading to a loss of confidence in public education
which increases the pressure for privatization. Private education is costly and
unaffordable leading to creation of huge inequalities in the society.
To cope with the variant dimension of challenges, there are several national and
international organisations that recommend and help the government to formulate
effective policies for education. Among those those, one of the leading
organization is Human Development Foundation (HDF) working on poverty of
knowledge by promoting equitable quality education for all, ensuring allChildren,
especially girls, realize their full potential. HDF emphasises on gender
equality and community participation while taking local norms and culture into
account. Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) encourage community participation
and keeps parents involved in their children’s schooling process.
In the past few years, Oxfamtogether with the,HDF and other civil society
organisations, has started to take collective action to support girl’s education
both at policy and practice level. This collective approach is based on alliance
building, campaigning and generating evidence aimed atundertaking collective
actions for improved and equitable resource distribution.
HDF has not only helped Oxfam and partners to achieve more citizens
(particularly young people’s) engagement during the recent years but has also
visibly improved the status of the education for girls aswell. That engagement
was helped to strengthen the required voice, accountability and propel change
among the parents and stakeholders to send the young girls back to schools and
institution to provide more resources to support girl’s education. Similarly,
influencing on Gender Responsive Budgeting and planning within education is
achieved through creating political will by establishing two education caucus in
Punjab and Sindh. Policy papers are produced to fuel political will on girl’s
education and to accelerate debates on policy floors.
Based on the experience and engagements of HDF-Oxfam there is without a doubt a
sufficient amount of evidence that there are many alternatives to manage
education crisis especially in countries like Pakistan that fall into low level
of human development. Among many few crucial alternatives are better education
financing through improving domestic resource mobilization, improved education
planning and budgeting,especially gender sensitiveallocation to budgets and
pro-poor progressive tax regime instead of regressive taxation.
Innovative projects and engagement at all levels will increase the access to
education for girls through approaches that leverage the strengths of students,
parents, community members aimedto influence government officials to fulfil the
duty of providing quality education. Apart from these initiatives, there is also
a strong need for upgrading school facilities and increasing school enrolments.
One step may be to provide scholarships to those who could not afford.
International Organisations like Oxfam has experimented this model and already
reflected an increase in not only number of enrolments but also a decrease in
dropouts as well. Due to the scholarship and its accompanying benefits, the
attitudes and behaviours of their parents changed to place a more positive value
on education. Since every step and decision in the matters of family unit is
linked with the economics, the education must also be linked with skill
development program as well. This will not only improve the economic
opportunities, but will also empower the women with the ability to manage and
contribute in the house hold expenses. This may also lead to strong voice at the
household level of a woman to empower and advocate her daughters to continue
their education, fostering a sustainable and prosperous household. If these
women are linked with the financial institutions and local market actors to
facilitate their income generating activities then with the sale of their
skills, products and services, they may contribute a lot in the overall economic
wellbeing of the country.
With an ever-increasing multifaceted challenge for girls education in Pakistan
at the domestic level, the partnership of government with the international
organisation coupled with strong linkages with the local government, is the key
to the solution. Empowered girls become advocates for education and hopefully
the leaders of tomorrow. Becoming aware of their rights, they can shape the
future course of our collective lives. The education deliverables that include
availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability can only be achieved
if the local, district, national and international stakeholders collaborate with
the strong presence of accountability at all levels. With strong optimism and
humble efforts, the partnership at national and international levels therewillbe
a steady growth forward to shift the mind-set of the society and reduce the
gender imbalance both at the community and institutional level.