PESHAWAR   -  Carrying prime signifi­cance to socioeconomic development of human resources, education em­powers women to per­form productive role in the country’s develop­ment and bring positive social change in the so­ciety.

As a well-known prov­erb says, “If you educate a man, you educate an indi­vidual. But if you educate a girl, you educate the en­tire nation” and our con­stitution also makes ear­ly education compulsory for all, female education bears pivotal importance for nation building. 

But, despite constitu­tional provision and ef­forts by the government, the situation of girls’ ed­ucation in erstwhile FATA is not very promis­ing with FATA annual ed­ucation census revealing only 37% girls enrolled at primary schools, drop­ping significantly to five percent at secondary lev­el. On contrary, 49 per­cent boys are enrolled at primary school with 17 percent at secondary schools. 

Multiple factors, rang­ing from socio-politi­cal and economic to reli­gious and culture taboos are contributing to this predicament.

“The foremost impedi­ments for girls attending school in former Fata are cultural. In tribal socie­ties, cultural taboos, high rate of unemployment and poverty discourage girls from education,” said Professor Dr Ibra­him Khan, former Direc­tor Elementary and Sec­ondary Education KP.

“Commonly girls in these areas are expect­ed to help their mothers in household, take care of elders and help par­ents in agriculture. Ear­ly marriages also hamper their education,” Dr Ibra­him said. 

He admitted that girls in erstwhile FATA lag be­hind in education also due to lack of political in­terest, law and order sit­uation and militants at­tacks, shortage of schools and teachers unwilling­ness to serve there.

“All this had increased girl students’ drop out ra­tio and now when these areas are part of KPK, the government needs to re­build damaged schools to bring Out of School Chil­dren (OSC) under educa­tion net,” Dr Ibrahim said.

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) 2021 survey had disclosed the OSC has reached to about 4.9 mil­lion in KP including one million in ex-FATA . These OSC included about 2.9 million girls aged five to 16 years in settled dis­tricts and one million children in merged trib­al districts with 74.4% girls and 38.5% boys out of school in the province.

The survey further re­vealed about 61% chil­dren are out-of-school in North Waziristan, 63% in Bajaur, 61% in South Wa­ziristan, 51% each in Mo­hmand and Khyber and 47% each in Kurram and Orakzai.

Likewise, 3.67 mil­lion students including 1.38 million boys and 2.38 million girls in set­tled districts and 1.0067 million students includ­ing 0.36 million boys and 0.65 million girls in merged districts were out of schools.