Serious efforts are required to secure and to rehabilitate the educational system in areas hit by militancy.
ISLAMABAD: I want to draw the attention of the government and other concerned stakeholders towards the ongoing destruction of schools by militants. Attacks on schools and colleges, especially for girls, have been taking place in the conflict-ridden areas of Fata and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for some years now. The result is that thousands have become non-functional and dropout rates have increased, in a region where literacy levels are already far lower than the national average.
According to a report “State of Pakistan’s Children 2010” published by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, around 40,000 children are said to have been affected with the closure of schools and subsequent displacement of families in Fata alone during 2010.
In a country where getting children into and retaining them through primary school has been a challenge and where it is next to impossible to get those children who drop out of school to return, any interruption of the schooling process is bound to have damaging long-term effects. Serious efforts are required to secure and to rehabilitate the educational system in areas hit by militancy.
Amina Sarwar
Published in The Express Tribune, July 28th, 2011.
