Shahzad Rasheed
Today a members of Civil Society Organizations in a press conference demanded no cut in annual education development budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Qamar Naseem program Coordinator Blue Veins and education rights activist working to speed up the progress towards girls’ secondary education said “Considering the current situation of COVID-19 in the country, we are anticipating delays in enrollment and other routine educational activities but we also have fear of increasing the ratio of girls drop out and their early age marriages after COVID-19 period due to economic stress in families. He moreover said, “Millions of children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are out of school and the only reasons is not Covid-19, it is because We don’t have enough schools, we don’t have enough teachers, We don’t have enough facilities and above all there are “social taboos” and “patriarchal norms” that keeps hundreds of millions of girls out of school.
Sana Ahmad a girl’s rights activist said “for many school-going age girls, especially those from low-income and the poorest families, access to education is already a challenge, and the crisis of COVID-19 has further exacerbated the situation. It is anticipated that prolonged school closure can also result in drop out of girls.”
The activists said that emergencies exacerbate preexisting inequalities and intensify the existing learning crisis. It is difficult for girls from the poorest communities to access and utilize remote learning strategies, either because access is limited or because the burden of care often falls on women. “keeping in consideration the dipartites and socio-economic challenges, the government needs to ensure equitable approach to resources and increase budget allocation towards girls’ education”. Ms. Jannat Mehmood, Social Activist pointed out. The activists emphasized on the sustainability of efforts and stronger political will both by federal and provincial government and demanded increased budget allocation towards education and ensure most of those funds are allocated towards girls’ education in fiscal year 2020-2021.Education Development Budget in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should not be cut down and needs to be increased in this critical period to promote innovative solutions for education.