Primary education in rural areas

The Sindh government has taken bold and innovative steps to improve the state of education in Sindh.

Villages in rural Sindh are a site to behold. Some are as small as a few houses but when counted together, they are home to the majority of the population in these areas. The people of rural Sindh need basic facilities and the most basic and necessary facility is a primary school. After many years, I decided to visit my primary school — the school which laid the foundation of my education. It was from here that I started my journey. My school was a ‘one-room-one-teacher’ school. Some 10,000 such schools exist today in Sindh. I had expected the same spick and span room with neat and tidy children, along with a teacher, a pleasant and towering personality, the same as it used to be. But alas, it was not as I had thought. The sight I saw was shocking and even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined it. The school had become a ghost school. Although there was a one-room cemented building, it had obviously been abandoned a long time ago. The electric fittings had been torn apart and the windows and doors broken.

I asked a man, who was supervising the construction of his house near the school, what had happened. He said that the school had been non-functional for several years now. I asked him where the children go to school and he replied, “To another school at the end of the village.” I breathed a sigh of relief, but my optimism proved short-lived as I found that school had also closed. On further inquiry, I came to know, that although two teachers were posted in the school, it did not open regularly. During my visit, I saw boys and girls, of school-going age, wandering around or sitting in a street shack watching television. Schools are non-functional in rural areas, mostly, because the teachers are either not available or they are not willing to teach.

The Sindh government has taken very bold and innovative steps to improve the state of education in these areas. They have taken to providing direct funding to the school management committee for the improvement of schools and are also providing scholarships to girls to boost female enrolment. The provision of free textbooks is also a major step forward, which is a big cost on the provincial exchequer but provides relief to the poorest of the poor. But still, more bold steps are required and required urgently. This year the development strategy of the Sindh government also envisions a paradigm shift and proposes to establish comprehensive schools at the Union Council level and boarding schools at the district level. This would be a step in the right direction and implementing this vision and getting desired results will necessitate a consistent and urgent effort.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2011.