Education is a privilege that the people of Kohistan have never had

While the government has built schools, the teachers never show up.

THANO BULA KHAN:

Allah Dino has six daughters and two sons but none of them go to school. He believes that the ‘luxury’ of education is only for those who can afford it.

“There is a school near my village but it has been closed for a decade now,” he said. “We cannot afford education. I don’t think there is any school in this entire area where the students attend classes on a regular basis.”

Allah Dino’s village, Rek Joi, is around 30 kilometres from the taluka headquarter, Thano Bula Khan. Lack of education plagues not only Rek Joi but also the rest of Kohistan. Some of the villages have schools but there are no teachers there.



“We have school buildings but we don’t have any teachers,” said another villager, Soomar, pointing towards a new building. “The government constructs the school buildings and thinks that their job is finished. They fail to ensure that teachers come to school.”

In the absence of proper schooling, the children have little to while away the time. “You will see children playing here and there, or working with their parents, but they have little in terms of entertainment or education,” said a resident of the Pandi village, Inayat. “We need teachers.”

There are a few students who do attend school but their lack of academic understanding is an indictment of the quality of education here. “Yes I go to school daily,” said seven-year-old Sohni. However, when she was asked which class she studies in, her reply was a confused, “What does studying mean?”



Here ‘going to school’ means roaming inside its building for a few hours as there are no teachers to teach, explained Inayat. “Our girls are illiterate,” he said.

“We are all illiterate,” added Allah Dino. “Yes some of the men have attended school, but most of us, especially the women, have had no education at all.”

The people of Kohistan may not be educated but the importance of education is not lost on them. “Without education, we are as helpless as the blind,” said a villager, Abdul Rahim. “Our youth have no technical skills. There is unemployment everywhere and no means for earning a living. This is all because of our illiteracy.”

Rahim said that one of the main reasons that the youngsters of Kohistan are unable to go to cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad to earn a living is that they have no employable skills. “What will they do there,” he asked.

“Kohistan’s education system has collapsed completely,” said Rasheed Gul, the president of a non-governmental organisation, Kohistan Social Service. “Either the teachers don’t bother to come to the schools or they have been closed and converted into autaaqs [guest houses].”

However, private teachers from nearby cities such as Kotri and Jamshoro travel to Kohistan a few times every week to help teach the children, attempting to do what the government has failed to.

The education department officials that are supposed to monitor the attendance of the teachers also don’t show up. “The officials are smart as they manage to deceive the people and the higher authorities,” said Gul.

According to the locals, the villages furthest away from Thano Bula Khan suffer the most from a lack of educational facilities.

The people of Kohistan blame authorities for the lack of educational facilities and say that it is political interference that is hindering their progress.

“Our children are being kept illiterate deliberately,” claimed Inayat. “Our children want to go to schools and colleges but they are restricted to their villages. It is our basic right but we are being deprived of it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2014.