Why Pakistan is letting its girls fall behind
In Pakistan, we have become very good at celebrating beginnings – a new school building; a photograph of smiling girls holding textbooks; a ribbon cutting ceremony with media coverage.
We excel at these moments; the promise, the optimism, the perfect photograph and media coverage.
These moments matter. But they have also allowed us to look away from a harder truth: far too many girls disappear from education just when it should begin to change their lives.
The key findings of the upcoming 'Status of Girls' Education in Pakistan' Report shows that at the primary level, some progress is visible. Yet beyond these early years lies a familiar and troubling pattern I have seen across Pakistan: girls who start school with confidence and ambition quietly vanish from classrooms as they reach adolescence.
They do not drop out. They are pushed out.
The transition from primary to secondary education is where the system falters. A girl completes Grade 5, proud and hopeful, only to encounter an invisible wall. The middle school is too far. There is no safe transport. The teachers are mostly men. The family hesitates and the state offers no answer.
This is not a failure of aspiration. Pakistan's girls have never lacked hunger for learning. They have walked through floods, conflict and poverty to sit in classrooms. What they encounter instead is a system that stops halfway and calls it success.
We often speak about access to education as if buildings alone deliver it. They do not.
A school without a teacher, especially without a woman teacher, is not truly a school for adolescent girls in much of Pakistan. This reality is starkly captured in 'The Missing Ustani', a report by Tabadlab which reflects what communities already know: the severe shortage of female teachers, particularly in rural areas, is one of the strongest drivers of dropout after primary school.
For young children, a male teacher may be acceptable. For teenage girls, it often is not. This is not simply cultural conservatism; it is about trust, safety and dignity. When these are absent, families withdraw their daughters quietly and permanently.
But the teacher shortages is only part of a larger structural problem. The most fragile point in Pakistan's education system is not enrollment; it is retention. There are far fewer middle and secondary schools than primary ones, and they are often located at distances that are simply unrealistic for girls.
Distance is not neutral. It intersects with safety concerns, unpaid care work, social expectations, and poverty. Without safe transport or nearby schools, the constitutional promise of education quietly expires around the age of ten.
What we offer instead is basic literacy enough to read, but not enough to lead. Enough to comply, but not enough to challenge. This is where stopping early becomes an injustice.
And yet, for too long, we have treated primary education as if it is sufficient for girls. It is not.
A girl who can read has a skill. A girl who completes secondary education has choices.
Secondary education is where confidence is formed, where critical thinking takes root, and where girls begin to imagine futures beyond survival. It is where early marriage is delayed, poverty cycles are broken, and leadership begins to emerge.
When we invest fully in these years, we do more than extend schooling and therefore we expand possibility. We equip girls not only to recognise the boundaries around them, but to move beyond them with confidence and agency. The question then becomes: what does real commitment look like? This is not simply a matter of gender justice; it is a strategic investment in Pakistan's social cohesion, economic strength and democratic future.
No nation thrives by leaving half its population behind at adolescence.
If we are serious about girls' education, we must move beyond symbolism and into systems.
Pakistan must urgently recruit and retain more female teachers, particularly in rural and underserved areas, supported by targeted incentives, safe accommodation or transport, and professional respect.
We must rethink school planning; building schools for girls at secondary level, upgrading existing primary schools to middle level so girls can remain close to home through Grade 8.
And where distance cannot be reduced, it must be bridged. Safe, subsidised transport for girls is not charity; it is infrastructure. It is what dignity looks like in policy form.
The state cannot do this alone, nor should it have to. Alongside, there are organisations and movements that have refused to let this issue fade into silence. Organisations like Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi , Aurat Foundation, Zindagi Trust and Malala Fund continue steadily and persistently to advocate for girls' rights and the resources required to realise them – often in difficult contexts and with little recognition.
They will continue to do so until every girl in Pakistan has access to a safe, joyful school for at least twelve years - education that does not stop at survival, but opens pathways to choice, dignity and leadership.
Pakistan's girls have already shown courage. What remains to be seen is whether the system will match it.