Womens Education in Pakistan - Coursework Example

Women’s Education in Pakistan Introduction Education is a basic human right that every individual is en d to regardless of their gender and perceived gender roles in any society, although, women have been largely been marginalized in the provision of educational opportunities in many societies across the world. Due to numerous social, cultural, economic, as well as political obstacles that continuously frustrate and impede the efforts to promote education for the female gender, literacy levels among girls and women have conventionally remained low thereby raising many concerns among policy makers. This paper will highlight the education of women in Pakistan while paying close attention to the background context, the prevailing state of women’s education, the obvious gender disparities in the provision of education, as well as some of the crucial obstacle impeding education for girls and women and their solutions. Background information Due to its vital role in the development of human capital in society, education has been recognized as one of the most fundamental universal human rights for all persons irrespective of their gender all over the world. The Pakistan constitution guarantees education as a basic human right for every citizen through the provisions of article thirty-seven, although the country’s education sector is rife with gender disparities. The UN’s Human Development report in 2011 showed that the number of males receiving secondary in Pakistan was double that of females while the country targeted only about 2.7% of its total GDP for the provision of education. Generally, roles in the Pakistan society are extremely gendered with patriarchal values heavily governing the highly hierarchical social structure; the women’s legitimate physical space is the home, where they are expected to contribute productively as mothers and wives but the men dominate the external world performing their roles as breadwinners (SIGI, 2012). The two genders are segregated in their own distinct worlds with the males being favoured in allocation of household resources because of their perceived extremely important productive role in society. Similarly, boys are prioritized in the provision of education for the genders because it is vital for their preparation to perform their roles in competition for resources in the public arena. Contrariwise, education for the girls is not given priority since it is largely perceived that girls simply require specializing in domestic matters to be able to perform their roles as mothers and wives, which does not require so much education to grasp. The implication for denying the female gender equal education opportunities as those accorded to the male gender ensures that females do not develop their human capabilities as their male counterparts and this equals to discrimination of women according to the convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW, 2007). The patriarchal realities of life and the gendered division of roles is so much entrenched in the Pakistan society that the female gender does not have any choice but to oblige the dominance of the male gender; educational inequality in Pakistan is the primary source of gender inequality in the country. The question of Women’s education Education for women has been found to be the basis of the females’ empowerment to establish social relationships on equal levels with others while achieving high self-esteem and self-respect. Additionally, education for women promotes their mobility by enabling them have equal chances in the competition for jobs and other opportunities in life; for instance, educating the women empowers them to participate in politics where they voice the women’s concerns and interests that need to be addressed through national policy. Since education is mandatory for the development of the human resources, women education does promote their productivity in matters of economic development and growth, thereby acting as a powerful instrument of change. Despite the pathetic state of women’s education in most societies around the world, the significance of female education can never be ignored, especially because it is inevitably linked to all other facets of human development. In that respect, to implement changes in women’s education is to also to prompt remarkable changes in a wide variety of other fronts including social health, family care, nutrition, sanitation, community empowerment, among other things. The benefits of education for women can be summarized in terms of social and human development, as well as gender equality; increase in the levels of female literacy is inevitably linked to the increase in wages, and other returns to education, which are generally larger than those from education of men are. Human development outcomes such as child survival, health, and level of schooling are more likely to be enhanced through the education of women while lower female education has fatalistic outcomes including low economic growth and the average level of human capital. Educational inequality between the two genders is the primary risk factor for poor economic growth, particularly because high literacy levels, enrolment ratio, as well as proportionate ratio of literate females to males have positive and significant consequences for economic development. Specifically, female empowerment through education does reduce fertility as well as infant mortality while promoting children’s access to education since educated women are more likely to take their children to school as well; lower household size, dependency ratio, in addition to enhanced education coupled with increased female labour participation inevitably reduces levels of poverty. Gender disparities in Pakistan education Pakistan has been ranked as the country with the lowest literary levels in the world, with nearly more than 40% of girls never enrolling in school, due to socio-cultural constraints and prejudices; thus, gender inequalities exist in the provision of educational opportunities in Pakistan, with disparities in literacy and educational attainment between rural and urban Pakistan being the highest. In some rural parts of the country such as in the northern tribal areas, women education is strictly prohibited due to religious reasons, thus the attendance of girls in primary through to post-secondary education is lower than that of boys. The situation women education in Pakistan is much more alarming in the rural areas due to the strong socio-cultural inhibitions that work to deny women educational opportunities; for instance, since a large percentage of the county is Islamic, the religion has largely been misinterpreted to deny women educational opportunities in whole. According to the official results from the Federal Education Ministry of Pakistan, the overall literacy level in Pakistan is about 46% while only about 26% of the girls in the country are literate. However, these figures are lower for independent sources and educational experts in the country, who remain highly sceptical and critical of the dire state of education in Pakistan; for instance, private sources place the total literacy level in the country at 26 % but the literacy level of girls and women at only about 12% since (Latif, n.d). Out of nearly 163,000 primary schools in Pakistan, only about 40,000 of them cater for female education while only about 5000 and 3000 of the 14,000 lower secondary schools and 10,000 higher secondary schools respectively offer girl-child education. Only about 250 colleges and 2 medical colleges in the whole of the country are for girls with only about less than 10 million girls attending primary school, 5.4 and 10 million attending lower and higher secondary respectively while about 1,5 and 0.5 million respectively attend colleges and universities. Challenges to women education The efforts of both the governmental and non-governmental organizations to provide education for women in the most affected areas such as Baluchistan have largely been opposed by the local landlords who perceive education and literacy as a threat to their power and domination of the regions. Overall, the government has done so little in promoting women education, particularly in these areas where women are largely underrepresented in educational institutions; similarly, the government does not offer any assistance to the independent groups such as NGOs that are trying to offer education in these areas due to its stakes. For instance, the government seeks to control these areas through the endorsement and support of the landlords and other local chieftains who are largely represented in the country’s national assembly because of their huge membership in Pakistan’s major political parties. Poverty has resulted to child labour since according to UNICEF, about 17.6% of children in Pakistan work, especially as domestic servants, to support their families financially; more girls than boys are employed as domestic servants, staying in the houses and doing all the work instead of going to school like the rest of the children do in other places. A huge proportion of children in Pakistan work at various industries including the brick kiln factories and the carpet weaving industry; the education of girls and women is not desirable in Pakistan since it is not perceived as beneficial to families as the girls do not offer any returns on the investment in their education in return (Ishmail, 2014). In that case, boys are largely favoured in attending school, unlike the girls who are pushed to child labour to provide for their families instead of attending school, thereby further reinforcing the prevailing educational gap between the two genders in Pakistan, even for the most socially disadvantaged families. The security state in the country’s volatile areas does threaten education to great extents as the militant groups operating in the country have in the past blast millions of schools leading to loss of millions of students’ lies (Joelle, 2013). Extremist groups in the country are totally opposed to the idea of educating women and girls hence they target schools for the sole purpose of disrupting their education; to this end, these groups have issued threats not only to the government, but also to all the independent groups providing education to women compelling them to stop. Women have been unable to leave their houses due to the fear of these extremist groups and whenever they have to leave their houses they must cover up in heavy burqas from head to toe. The implication of this situation is that women have been forced to remain at home to simply bear children for their husbands and to carry out domestic chores rather than going to school. The country’s educational sector has also seen numerous changes in policies as the government has in the past announced different plans and policies seeking to bolster girls’ and women’s education; nonetheless, all these changes have not resulted to any significant improvement in the literacy levels among women in the country (Ishmail, 2014). Despite the stated desire to promote the literacy levels of women and girls through numerous ambitious plans and programs that aim to achieve that objective, subsequent governments have been unable to translate their policies into remarkable changes in the education of women and girls. Numerous social, cultural, economic, as well as political obstacles stand in the way of women’s and girls’ education, thereby frustrating and impeding all efforts to promote the literacy levels among the females in the country. Overall, the state of girls’ and women’s education in Pakistan is horrible, and gender inequality plays itself into the educational sector, thereby further reinforcing the gaps between the literacy levels of boys and girls. Education is generally inaccessible for girls due to the distance from schools, child labour, male preference, as well as the frequent policy changes and the local leaders’ fear of losing power. In as much as the problem of inaccessibility affects both genders, the females are the most affected since socio-cultural norms compel them to stay closer to their homes yet a majority of the schools are far away. For Pakistan to enhance the literacy of women while achieving gender equality in the educational sector, a number of changes will have to be effected including the change of the mind-sets of leaders and local chieftains in the country. Educational policies will also have to be altered to realign them to the goal of promoting female education in the country while achieving gender equality in the access to educational opportunities; various awareness as well as practical lessons will have to be taken to the local areas to further highlight the need for female education. References SIGI. (2012). Country profiles: Pakistan. Genderindex. [Online]. Available at: http://www.genderindex.org/country/pakistan CEDAW. (2007). CEDAW 39th Session. [Online]. Available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ Joelle, W. (2013). What It Really Will Take to Educate Pakistans Girls. Huffingtonpost. [Online]. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joelle-wyserpratte/girls-education-pakistan_b_2985020.html Latif, A. (n.d). Alarming situation of education in Pakistan. [Online]. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/know_sharing/grassroots_stories/pakistan_2.shtml Ishmail, S. (2014). 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