Today is the International Day of the Girl. Across Pakistan, many families want their daughters to be educated, yet girls still face real barriers to getting into school and staying there.
What the evidence shows
In November 2018, Human Rights Watch published “Shall I Feed My Daughter, or Educate Her?” Barriers to Girls’ Education in Pakistan. The report found that 32% of primary-school-age girls in Pakistan were out of school, compared with 21% of boys, and that by ninth grade only 13% of girls were still in school.
The report describes barriers both inside and outside the education system. Inside it: too few government schools, particularly for girls; the costs of studying, even in government schools; and the poor quality of many schools. Outside it: poverty, long or unsafe journeys to school, and pressures on girls to leave school early for work or marriage.
How KEF’s schools respond
Our partner, the Kashmir Education Foundation (KEF), has run schools in rural Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) since 1996. Several features of its approach speak directly to those barriers.
- A good school within reach. KEF builds schools in rural communities where the nearest good school was once a long way away.
- Places that do not depend on money. Admission does not depend on a family’s ability to pay.
- Places for girls. KEF aspires for girls to take at least 51% of school places, though cultural expectations and concerns for the safety of girls and women make that hard to reach.
- Women as teachers. KEF’s college at Bassali, the Joan Atkinson College of Teacher Education, trains women as primary teachers through a Diploma in Primary Education.
None of this works without families. Parents in the valleys choose to send their daughters to school; KEF and its supporters help make that possible.
How you can help
Quest for Education (now Quest for Education Foundation) has raised funds in the UK for KEF’s work since 2011. Your gift helps keep places open to girls whose families could not otherwise afford a good school, and helps train the women who will teach the next generation.
Read more about girls’ education in the schools we support.
Source: Human Rights Watch, “Shall I Feed My Daughter, or Educate Her?” Barriers to Girls’ Education in Pakistan, November 2018.