Baloch lawmakers show concern over educational crisis

A majority of Baloch lawmakers have expressed their concerns on educational situation in the province.
Talking to Pakistan Today, they said Balochistan’s education sector is facing a worst setback because of poor law and order situation, militancy, shortage of lecturers, substandard quality of education, kidnappings and killings of lecturers and teachers, high dropout ratio from schools and low budgetary allocations. They said the government is executing nothing to improve education situation in the province.
Former Senate deputy chairman Mir Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali stressed that the situation of education in the province had entered its weakest status at present and direly needed a complete revamping. Jamali said that the province faced a scarcity of teachers as a large number of teachers and lecturers had fled the province, fearing killing and abductions.
He said that teachers from other provinces avoid serving in Balochistan due to killings and abductions of renowned educationists, adding that the government has to prepare cadres from within the province to produce local master trainers. National Party Senior Vice President Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo expressed his complete disappointment on declining situation of education in Balochistan and said that no measures were being taken to improve education sector.
Militancy, Bizenjo said, had posed a great loss to Balochsitan’s education sector, as majority of teachers (native speakers of other languages including Punjabis) have left the area. Now counter-militancy campaigns have exposed the education sector, teachers and lecturers to other threats.
He pointed out that the total budgetary allocation for education was less than 2 percent, of which the share of “the province is like peanuts”, adding, “If we distribute this budgetary allocation among students then it would stand hardly Rs 20 or Rs 30 per student per annum.”
“Sixty-five percent schools in the province are without teachers, and in those schools where teachers are available each teacher teaches five classes a day. It is need of the time to introduce specific educational projects in Balochistan on war-footing,” Bizenjo said.
Awami National Party Senator Daud Khan Achakzai was of the view that teachers in the province were available at a primary level, but not at university level, because of poor law and order situation that resulted in life loss of many renowned lecturers. The ANP leader said several teachers had left the province, adding that as many as 100 lecturers had left Balochistan University. “When a university loses 100 of its faculty members, you can better guess the situation there,” he said.
Pakistan People’s Party Senator Saifullah Magsi said that the province’s education sector was going through most difficult time, adding that it not only lacked teachers but the education system had collapsed.
Former National Assembly deputy speaker Sardar Wazir Ahmed Jogezai said that the education conditions in the province were identical to those of other provinces as private school system was there to fill the vacuum.