Balochistan is the biggest province of Pakistan by land area. It shares 44 percent of the total area of Pakistan. Despite being the biggest province, it is deprived of the basic necessity of life. It has been underprivileged since its inception.

However, there are several problems in Balochistan but the most disheartening problem is the crisis of education. Because education can be considered the backbone of any nation. Without it neither progress nor prosperity is possible.

Unfortunately, Balochistan is facing an education crisis from the day early. The ratio of education in Balochistan is next to nothing. If we compare the percentage of Balochistan with other provinces, it makes us astonished and frustrated. Because of the lowest education ratio. The current education percentage of Balochistan is between 39 to 44. On the other hand, in Punjab education percentage is 64, in Sindh 58, and KPK 55. Various contributing factors are responsible for low education in Balochistan, but the most accelerating factors, including, unemployment, poverty, lack of awareness, teachers’ absenteeism, deficiency of good educational institutions, and lack of check and balance by the government to the educational institutions.

According to some figures, there are 12500 total schools in Balochistan. Among them, 7000 schools are without roofs and are in shabby condition. And 1800 schools are disfunction and not running effectively. Additionally, 6000 schools are run by single teachers and 2200 schools lack basic facilities including, drinking water, toilet rooms, etc.

Therefore, the education system deteriorated badly in Balochistan. As per the Unicef report, there 60 to 70 percent of children are out of school in Balochistan. Some of them worked in different places as labourers on the score of their family’s poor backgrounds and other thousands of children are away from education as a result of the unavailability of good educational institutions.

Apart from this, absenteeism of teachers is also one of the majority reasons for low education in Balochistan. As per some of the figures, there are nearly 5000 ghost teachers in Balochistan. They do not perform their duties honestly but get their full wages. They are deliberately playing with the brilliant future of innocent children.

To sum up, the education crisis is a most devastating problem in Balochistan. It is the responsibility of the Government of Balochistan to take rigid action against those teachers who are destroying the future of the children. And also fix heavy budgets for the education sectors so as to help the people of Balochistan to overcome the education crisis.

MUHAMMAD SHOAIB,

Quetta.