THE recent catastrophic floods have had a significant impact on access to education in Balochistan, because of the damage done to school access and infrastructure, even though a few schools in the affected areas have managed to escape harm. The government has no option but to ensure access to education, which is a fundamental human right under Article 25A of the Constitution and Balochistan’s Compulsory Education Act, 2014, for all children.

It is necessary to invest in access to education and improving the school infrastructure — not for just this or the coming year but the long run. The likelihood of a similarly intense monsoon season in the coming years has been forecast. Quality has already been compromised, and without adequate measures, it will further deteriorate as the focus of educational policies is on enrolling as many children as possible with little attention being given to creating quality learning opportunities.

The statistics in terms of access to basic education were not satisfactory even before the floods. In the province, 78 per cent of girls and 68pc of boys are out of school. The devastating waters have affected 3.5 million school-aged children in the worst-hit provinces. In Balochistan, the number is estimated at 315,000. The collapse of school buildings in Balochistan and loss of learning materials and learning time seem to have further delayed their education. Moreover, many of the school buildings that are still safe are being used as shelters by those affected by the floods.

It is estimated that because of the loss of livelihood in the affected parts of the province, more children will be out of school in the long run as the number of child labourers may increase to new levels in the face of parents’ desire to engage their offspring in work in order to overcome economic losses and earn a living.

Access to education in Balochistan has worsened.

The floods have also meant that the means of communication and access have been washed away, and this will especially affect girls. Already, accessibility was a major issue. During the days before the floods, a child had to travel 30 kilometres on average to reach primary school, 260 km to get to middle school, and 360 km to reach high school. All this will compound learning losses.

In terms of a remedy, the most viable option might be a policy shift towards consolidating course content in order to cover the learning losses due to the impact of the floods. Such consolidation means setting priority learning targets in all subjects to enable students to make up over a shorter span of time. This was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, but there has been little analysis to gauge its effectiveness, which could have helped address the shortcomings.

The response of content consolidation will test teachers’ instructional capital and add to their responsibilities as they are already engaged in multi-grade teaching. In a multi-grade setting, one teacher teaches all subjects from nursery to class five. It will need capacity building to cope with the challenge. Without this, content consolidation may not prove fruitful.

An initial emergency response is also required to help children come out of their trauma by concentrating on their mental health. The emergency response needs to consider the provision of learning materials in the form of toys and fun activities to help children recover from their mental ordeal and keep them engaged in the learning process so that there is a smooth transition from rehabilitation to formal schooling. Moreover, it’s not a simple task to get schools ready for students after the flood victims leave the premises. It will take time, energy and money to fix buildings and im­­prove water, sanitation and hyg­i­ene facilities.

It is good to see that development agencies have helped establish distance-learning opportunities in the flood-affected areas, in addition to setting up temporary learning centres, although more serious measures are required.

The link between communities’ socioeconomic well-being and children’s learning opportunities is a close one. Without creating livelihood opportunities for communities, despite making all efforts to improve the access nexus, there may be no progress, as parents’ ultimate priority will be to earn a living, even it means getting their children of school-going age to work.

Given the multifaceted dynamics of child education, a multisectoral response that creates learning opportunities on the one hand while caring for communities’ livelihood prospects on the other is required. There is a need to develop a high level of coordination for effective resource utilisation, including assessing and setting priorities. Though our track record in this regard has not been particularly encouraging, there is no other option but to remain optimistic and hope for the best.

The writer is an educationist with a focus on educational leadership and management.
nazeer.khan53@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2022