Unesco urges Balochistan govt to offer free education to children
Students in a classroom. — AP Photo/File
QUETTA, Feb 15: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has urged Balochistan government to take steps for legislation on free and compulsory education for children in the province.
Speaking at a conference titled “Article 25-A: Right to Education” organised jointly by the UN agency and provincial education department, Unesco’s Senior National Education Specialist Arshad Saeed Khan said: “We are ready to extend our technical support and collaboration to the Balochistan government for legislation on free and compulsory education for children.”
He said the provincial government should use all available resources to spread education in the province.
He said a recent survey had revealed that 58 per cent of people in Balochistan had never attended school and presently 44pc of the children were not enrolled in schools.
He said that Balochistan should follow the lead of Sindh government and take practical steps to get a bill on free and compulsory education for children aged between five to sixteen years passed by the provincial assembly.
Higher Education Secretary Sher Khan Bazai said that lack of financial resources was becoming a hurdle in implementation of Article 25-A of the Constitution. He said that educational institutions in Balochistan were in a dilapidated condition which needed special attention for improvement.
Vice Chancellor of Balochistan University, Prof Dr Rasool Bakhsh Raisani, Unesco Balochistan chapter representative Qaisar Khan Jamali and other officials were present on the occasion.
Education is the birth right of every child male or female. The education and education alone will change the thinking of a nation… The first sentence revealed to our prophet was “READ IN THE NAME OF GOD WHO CREATED YOU FROM A CLOT. We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
These so called the leaders with blissful ignorance would never realize the plight of these innocent children of Pakistan.
YES, this one good step.
However free education should also be *good quality education*. Will the educators be fellow Baloch
men & women teachers. If you outsource this process of education to any odd teacher from all over the country, the quality will suffer from poor motivation.
If teachers are underpaid they do not perform. If their performance is not monitored , they become slack and complacent. This can not be just a 9 am to 5 pm teaching jog. Rather it has to be a passionate avocation.
Equally important is ADULT LITERACY.
AND, lets not forget , after one gets a good EDUCATION, there is the need for jobs, job creation and an economy that is growing rapidly.
It does not require a UNESCO effort to implement this.
Will the emphasis be on URDU, or will it be Baloch + good level ENGLISH ????