‘90% of girls in rural Balochistan remain unschooled’

Around 90% of girls in rural Balochistan are deprived of schooling.

The insurgency is the key reason, while a lack of necessary funds, absence of a well-defined education policy, lack of girls’ schools, acute shortage of teaching staff, and poverty are other factors which contribute to the backwardness.

 Except for provincial capital Quetta, educational institutions are non-existent in Baloch-dominated areas of the province.

You will not find any school from Mastung to Gwadar.

Most neglected parts of the province where Baloch girls are not educated are Buleda (Makran), Kharan , Bolan and Marri and Bugti tribal areas.
There are government-run primary schools in other parts of the province, but high schools have not been established so far.

Bureaucratic hurdles and financial corruption are also other major factors that have destroyed the future of thousands of girls.

Many religious schools established in mosques and madrassas have filled the vacuum of schools, but such religious schools are only imparting religious education.

Some foreign countries are interested in helping build schools in the province, but their experts and diplomats are not being allowed by Islam­abad to visit Balochistan due to security concerns.

Pakistan Army should expand its education network in the province. Army-run schools are providing better educational facilities in the most backward tribal areas of Marri, but the military should also set up schools in other parts of the province where non-Baloch teaching staff is not willing to serve.

It is very unfortunate that most teachers of Punjabi origin are not willing to serve in the Baloch-populated districts of the province after the killing of several teachers by the insurgents during the past many years.