By Andaleeb Akhtar
Education is a driving force for the development of a nation which provides the road to success and prosperity. If a nation wants true and durable development, it must seriously focus on the improvement of education.
Our country, Pakistan is a developing country and to get on the track of real development it needs immediate and proper attention in almost all sectors of life, including education. In Pakistan the current literacy rate is 57 percent including 69 percent males and 45 % females. This shows that nearly half of the population is illiterate.
In Pakistan, 60.5pc of the population live in rural areas, where unfortunately, more than half of the population is illiterate. They are unable to read and write. In our rural areas, it is not easy for people to get quality and higher education. This is why I would like to highlight some of the major problems faced by the students, especially girls, living in rural areas.
Though it is a fact that nowhere is free from poverty, yet in rural areas poverty exists in even worse condition than in urban areas. Poverty, adversely, affects student’s interest in education. In rural areas, the major occupation of people is agriculture and students of both sexes have to work in fields after their school time, in order to support their family. Which is why they do not get enough time for doing their homework and revision and also keeps them tired causing frequent absenteeism.
Another major problem, which the students from rural areas face, is lack of proper transportation. As it is evident that majority of the rural areas do not have facilities of higher education, thus students have to travel to cities for their studies. However, finding better transport remains a major problem for the students who travel to cities on daily basis. Transportation can also be time consuming.
Students have to travel long distances to reach their educational institutions daily, which usually takes long hours, depending upon the distance from their areas to their institutes. In this way much of their time is wasted. Moreover, students living in remote areas are also unable to participate in co-curriculum activities and sports which are usually held at late hours.
In rural areas, gender disparity is also more visible than in urban areas where women face constraints in all walks of life. As majority of the people are poor in rural areas, parents, usually, prefer to educate a male child rather than a female child in their limited resources.
Females are considered inferior and usually they do not get their basic rights of education and this is why big gap exists between the literacy rate of males and females. According to a report, “Education: What’s holding back rural Pakistan from achieving education for all “published in the daily dawn on January 15, within provinces, KP has the largest gap with 30.3 percent more girls are out of school than boys.
According to the Pakistan Education Statistics 2015-16, data 51% of girls in KP do not go to schools. In rural areas, women find it hard to get education because the society does not permit to study in coeducation. They are kept deprived of education because no separate schooling is present. They are supposed to work and sew clothes at home. Girls in rural areas get married at their early age, without completing their education. Thus their desire to get education remains unfulfilled.
In rural schools, in the available educational facilities there are limited subject options and a student has no choice than to select subjects in the few electives available subjects.
Additionally, students have less exposure and limited social circle in rural areas. They have limited opportunities of taking part in co-curricular activities.
Schools in rural areas even do not have sports team or a literary circles owing to which creative skills and capabilities of the talented students failed to come to surface.
Another problem facing by most of the students in rural areas is illiteracy of their parents due to which their children often find it difficult to seek guidance in their studies. Illiterate parents cannot help their children in doing their homework as well as other school activities.
Using internet for education purposes has become the need of the day but the unavailability of internet in rural areas is one of the big hurdles for students in their studies. In rural areas either internet is not available or the service is very poor and slow if somewhere it is available. In the absence of internet students have difficulty in submitting their assignments in soft form or taking online courses. They even cannot access to E-books, which are very helpful for students.
Pakistan is an under developed country where literacy rate is very low. If we want to develop our country, we should pay attention to problems that students face in rural areas. Following are some suggestions given, which can help increase literacy rate in rural areas:
First of all, government should try to take solid steps of eradicating poverty from the country, because a student with financial problems will not be able to focus on proper education.
It is said that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. In Pakistan only 2.2 percent of the GDP is spent on education, which is very small portion. Government should allocate more funds for education sector, to promote the literacy rate.
- The number of schools in rural areas should be increased. Similarly, higher schools and colleges should also be built in rural areas so that students may not need to travel to far flung areas for studies.
- Scholarships should be given to poor students to encourage them to continue their studies.
- Suitable and proper infrastructure should be provided, as it helps students to carry out their study effectively.
- Teachers play a vital role in promoting education. Qualified teachers should be appointed in rural areas.
- Last but not the least, rural population should be made aware about the importance of education, particularly about women education.
Andaleeb Akhtar is a student of BS English in Government Post Graduate Girls College, Saidu Sharif, Swat. She is an active member of the college literary circle and an emerging poet of Pashto language. Reading books and working with creative art and craft activities are her favorite hobbies.
