By: Sawam Khaskheli
BADIN: The social-cultural, political & religious norms were key barriers of the girls’ education in Sindh province. These views were expressed by the social & educational experts of district Badin on Thursday while addressing the Seminar organized by provincial Ombudsman at Badin Gym Khana which was participated by large number of participants of different departments, NGOs and citizens.
While addressing the seminar speakers of the seminar including Allah Dino Mallah, District Education Officer, Secondary, Muhammad Saleh Korejo, District Education Officer, Primary, Imran Ali Shah, District Education Officer, literacy, Abdul Ghafar Khoso, Deputy Director, Social Welfare, Tehmina Chhalgari and others said that poverty was also a major barrier of girls education in Sindh as mostly parents were engaging them for labor purpose amid to generate income for their family survival. They emphasized the participants to end the differences based on gender and join hand together for development of the area and their villages adding they termed that without girl’s education no development is possible.
They said that the stipend should be given to the girl’s students on regular basis saying that it is high time to discourage the negative thinking regarding girl’s education in the province. They highlighted that there were no washrooms in the schools of rural areas for women teachers and girl’s students’ even dearth of clean drinking water observed which has became cause of de-motivation for girl’s students toward their education. They underlined a need of the renovation work of the educational institutions of the district which according to them is an ample tool of the motivation for the education of the children generally and girls particularly. They said that curriculum of the students in schools was also needs to revise and line up with girl student’s expectations.
On the occasion, Fasihuddin Khan, Regional Director, Ombudsman said that our key interest and spirit would support us to get solutions of the faced problems saying that since Pakistan came into being, more than thirty three educational friendly policies have been developed saying that all hurdles faced by girl students would be removed soon as efforts were being taken.
Additional Deputy Commissioner-II, Waqar Ahmed Kalwar while addressing the audiences of the event assured the all possible support and facilitations by the district administration of Badin for improvement of the girl’s education saying that all issues discussed in the seminar would be tackle up with high authorities for getting its possible solutions.
Earlier, Sayed Ahsan Shah, Senior Program Officer, Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) Badin also presented the detailed findings and recommendations of the study launched by the SEF in collaboration with office of the Ombudsman, Sindh. The study read that drop out of the school children in general and the girls in particular, was a chronic issue in Sindh particularly in rural areas of Sindh province showing that one of the key factors for low levels of girls education was dearth of middle, secondary and higher schools in Sindh where parent were reluctant to allow their daughters to long distances schools. Study also emphasized to organize community awareness campaign, workshop on regular basis and it suggested gender as the cross-cutting theme as the part of every professional development of teachers of the province.