The Educational Discrimination in Pakistan
By: Ahmad Butt
Tags: Education Reform, Education, Social Warfare

Education for any country is a pillar for her development in this modern world. Whereas there are many policies in Pakistan for bringing the education more accessible for all the children in the country but still it is failed to produce a productive and well-organized generation which could lead the future towards more development. Pakistan is among the top countries with the higher ratio of youth. So, there a dire need to focus on the educational loopholes in Pakistan and to exclude the discrimination of educational quality in public and private schools.

Source: zainabtariq.wordpres.com

The educational gaps in Pakistan for the unprivileged class have proved to worsen for our nation. Due to these gaps, between private and public institutes, the system has failed to produce a youth to secure the future of this developing country.

As we are familiar with the stats that a huge number of children are out of school. Their parents do not send them to school due to some economic issues and also because they believe that this system cannot help to change their future. A renowned Journalist and Educationist Zubaida Musataf has done diverse research on the following issue. She mentioned that only a few parents from rural areas send their children to school, even ironically which is many kilometres away from their homes. Because most of the parents from lower-class believe that education is only for privileged children and such an inadequate educational system cannot help their children to change their lives. However, those students who have access to go to public school are not provided with even those basic facilities which privileged children enjoy.

She mentions in her research that those students, who are learning in these unprivileged schools, from Grade 5th to 8th, are not even able to read and write Urdu proficiently. So, you can guess what the quality of education they get, and you can also predict what generation we are preparing in which a lot of students are studying in such schools.

Source: Harvard Research Report on Poor Education System in Punjab

I observed the same situation in my surroundings. Children are deprived of adequate education; the education which should help them to make their lives better and become responsible citizens. Schools have become scary houses for children due to which very few students willingly go to school.

Firstly we need to convenience parents to send their children to schools, who believe that such an educational system cannot be proved helpful for their children to change their fate. Children who run from learning and memorizing system should experience a healthy and productive environment in which they learn and get proper growth.

I meet with a few teachers who teach at government schools. According to them are asked to teach students only curriculum books. This factor also gives birth to rigid behaviour in children towards education. Reading non-curriculum children literature books and magazine are not endorsed at all.

Unprivileged students have no access to these books and magazines at home. But such learning environment is also not provided in schools due to the unavailability of libraries. These factors lead to a bigger disaster in our education system for students who believe that learning is only memorizing.

I do not intend to blame the system. What I believe is that we should also contribute from our side to light a candle of our part. Teachers who teach at these schools should meet their duties honestly. They should not only behave as a teacher but also as a counsellor.

I purpose to reach such schools, nearby our areas and asked the school to let us organize some sessions every month in which volunteers (who are graduated or are graduating) make such environments in which students will be learning daily communication skills like fun activities, reading children books and magazines which will build reading habits, teaching small moral values as well as social behaviour and also held some exercises in which students will not be evaluated from their marks but their participation.

Source: AVI

Conducting such sessions will help to build the interest of students to attend the school more actively. It will enhance their abilities to developed a more positive and keen learning attitude in those students. This environment will also influence other people to send their children to schools and it will change the perception of those parents who are disappointed at the educational system. The more important and worthy noting result will be that we will play our part to fill the educational gap which these unprivileged children meet.