FEMALE EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education): 8 years for females compared to 9 years for males. School life expectancy (SLE) is the total number of years of schooling (primary to tertiary) that a child can expect to receive, assuming that the probability of his or her being enrolled in school at any particular future age is equal to the current enrollment ratio at that age. [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020 =]
Literacy (percentage of population age 15 and over that can read and write): total population: 59. 1 percent; male: 71. 1 percent; female: 46.5 percent (2015). [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
Female university students: (percent of gross enrollment, which mans the value can be over 100 percent): 8 percent (compared to 68 percent in Germany, 102 percent in the United States and 7 percent in Uzbekistan) [Source: World Bank worldbank.org]
Out of school children, primary age: male: 2,760,713; female: 3,874,041; total: 6,633,175
Gender parity index from gross enrollment ratio, primary: 1
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org; World Bank datatopics.worldbank.org]
Reasons for the low rates of education and literacy rates among females is primarily attributed to religious and social conservatism, which inhibits the movement of girls away from home, and the generally perceived irrelevance of the curriculum to their future role as housewives. The rate of girls in primary schools has gone up considerably in recent years in part because of opportunities offered by cheap private schools and reform pressures from foreign aid providers.
In the 1970s, when the with the illiteracy are among females was below, 75 percent, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced a number of adult literacy programs all over the country and aimed at universal primary education up to the fifth grade for boys by 1979 and for girls by 1984. Bhutto's government was toppled by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1977. He was the one primarily responsible for Islamicizing education in Pakistan, which has provided a religious justification for discriminating against women. In the 1980s technical schools were set up throughout the country. Those schools that were designated for females included hostels nearby to provide secure housing for female students. A new education policy launched in 1998 aimed to increase the number of female children in the primary schools by 2003. The new education policy also proposed training 36,000 teachers each year, with most of the new teachers to be females. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, Gale Group Inc., 2001]
In recent years many of the attacks on schools and education facilities by the Taliban and other militant groups have been directed at female students and their teachers and schools, with the aim of blocking girls’ access to education. After the Taliban took over large parts of the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2007, they began a violent campaign against education for girls. This is were Nobel-laureate Malala Yousafzai went to school and was shot in the head. Over 900 girls schools were forced to close and over 120,000 girls stopped attending school. About 8,000 female teachers were driven out of work. For many girls, the loss was permanent and they did not return to school even after the Pakistan army had displaced the Taliban.
Female Illiteracy in Pakistan
At least in part because of traditionally subordinate role in Pakistani society, two thirds of boys ages 6 to 11 attended primary school in the early 2000s but only a third of girls did. Few rural girls receive any education. One survey in the early 1990s found only 14 percent of women had received any schooling at all and in 15 out of 75 districts less than on percent of women could read or write.
The illiteracy rates for girls and women are shockingly low. The female literacy rate in Pakistan in the early 2000s was officially listed at 23 percent, one of lowest in the world. Many educators say the real figure was even lower, perhaps around 15. In the province of Balochistan, for example only 2 percent of the women at that time were literate enough to read a book and write a letter. A civil rights in lawyer in Lahore said poverty is not the only reason for high rate of female illiteracy. "I see rich landlords and powerful feudal chieftains, whose daughters are totally illiterate," she told Newsweek. "Their fathers don't want them to be taught."
Things have improved in recent years but still lag far behind the rest of the world. Literacy (percentage of population age 15 and over that can read and write): total population: 59. 1 percent; male: 71. 1 percent; female: 46.5 percent (2015). [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
The national and provincial governments have worked together to combat illiteracy as it is viewed as one of the most serious obstacles to economic and social development. Literacy improved from 34.8 percent (male 47.3 percent and female 21.1 percent) in 1991 to 43.6 percent (male 56.2 percent and female 29.8 percent) in 2000. Programs to reduce illiteracy have included model programs in each province. Many adult literacy centers, including women’s literacy centers, have been established, with the majority in Sindh. The People’s Open University was established at Islamabad to provide mass adult education. A program called "User of Quranic Literacy for Promotion of Female Literacy" took advantage of the ability of many women to read the Quran in Arabic as a tool to learn to read Urdu. [Source: “Cities of the World”, The Gale Group Inc., 2002; “Countries and Their Cultures”, Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Early History of Women’s Education in Pakistan
Muslim reformers in the nineteenth century struggled to introduce female education, to ease some of the restrictions on women's activities, to limit polygyny, and to ensure women's rights under Islamic law. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan convened the Mohammedan Educational Conference in the 1870s to promote modern education for Muslims, and he founded the Muhammadan Anglo- Oriental College. Among the predominantly male participants were many of the earliest proponents of education and improved social status for women. They advocated cooking and sewing classes conducted in a religious framework to advance women's knowledge and skills and to reinforce Islamic values. But progress in women's literacy was slow: by 1921 only four out of every 1,000 Muslim females were literate. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “The movement for education among Muslim women on the subcontinent went hand in hand with the social and legal reform movement as well as the anticolonial nationalist movement against British rule. A number of prominent Muslim reformers of the nineteenth century tried their best to encourage female education, to enable greater freedom of movement among women, to eradicate or limit polygamy, and to guarantee women's rights under Islamic rule. Many of the graduates of the Anglo-Oriental College (later Aligarh Muslim University), founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmad, strove to improve the social status of women. Unfortunately, but for a few exceptions, their liberalism did not extend beyond advocating "cooking and sewing classes conducted in a religious framework to advance women's knowledge and skills and to reinforce Islamic values." It is no wonder that there was little progress in women's education before 1920. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“As the nationalist movement progressed in the 1920s and 1930s, the issue of empowerment of women was linked to the independence of the subcontinent. A striking result of this was the enactment of the Muslim Personal Law in 1937, which improved the condition of women, particularly in regard to inheritance of property.
Women’s Education After Pakistan Was Created
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “Since the birth of Pakistan, the changing status of women has been linked with the discourse about the role of Islam in a modern state, the extent to which civil rights are appropriate in an Islamic society, and how they could be reconciled with Islamic family values. Thanks to some elite women and liberal-minded men of the middle and upper classes in the new country, the Muslim Personal Law of Sharia was passed in 1948, giving women rights to inherit all forms of property. And although the women's movement failed to get the Charter of Women's Rights included in the 1956 constitution, it succeeded in getting the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance promulgated five years later. This confirmed women's rights to inheritance and improved their position in regard to marriage and divorce. During the first decade and a half following the independence of Pakistan, women's prospects looked fairly promising, including in the field of education. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“Of significance to women's status in Pakistan were two significant movements in its neighborhood propelling the Pakistani society into two diametrically opposite directions. First was India, where the high status of women, on a level of equality with men, was guaranteed under the country's constitution of 1950 and implemented in politics and law ever since. The other was the rising tide of fundamentalism in post-Shah Iran and in Talibandominated Afghanistan, which has adversely affected the status of women and of female education in many countries of the Muslim world, including in Pakistan.
“Major setbacks came during the decade-long conservative regime of President Zia-ul-Haq and his Islamization program, beginning in 1979. Several laws and ordinances were aimed at prejudicing women's position under the Muslim family law and the enjoyment of democratic rights. In 1986 a revision in Pakistan's Penal Code provided that "whoever by words, spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Prophet Muhammad shall be punished with death or imprisoned for life and shall be liable to fine." The law was used indiscriminately against anyone but more particularly against women and minorities.
“Improvements in education, including female education, occurred during the brief first administration of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (December 1988-August 1990). The momentum continued during the next three administrations, indicating the people's rejection of Zia's Islamization program. Such steps were partly also the result of long-term pressures from international donors. In March 1990, the World Conference on Education for All met in Jomtien, Thailand. Prior to the conference, UNICEF, the UNDP, the World Bank, and UNESCO, the sponsors of the meeting, had declared "Education for All" as their top priority. They had impressed on Pakistan's bureaucrats and businessmen that their country would not make progress without a healthy, well-educated population. The developing countries meeting in Jomtien pledged to concentrate on providing universal education, including that of females. Thanks again to the continuing efforts of the world agencies and some of the participating countries at the conference, the heads of state and governments of nine large countries — Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan — met in New Delhi in November 1993. Representing three-quarters of the world's illiterate population and huge numbers of the world's outof-school children, they pledged to institute urgent and appropriate policies to promote education for all. Accordingly, in 1994 the Social Action Program, an expensive joint effort of the government and the donor agencies involving US$8 billion to be spent over 5 years, was inaugurated in Pakistan.
“A number of computer training centers have been established for women and the government has opened "women development centers" that specialize in training community development workers in family planning, hygiene, sanitation, adult literacy, community organization, and legal rights. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Low Female Participation in Pakistani Education
Comparison of data for men and women reveals significant disparity in educational attainment. By 1992, among people older than fifteen years of age, 22 percent of women were literate, compared with 49 percent of men. The comparatively slow rate of improvement for women is reflected in the fact that between 1980 and 1989, among women aged fifteen to twenty-four, 25 percent were literate. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]
United Nations sources say that in 1990 for every 100 girls of primary school age there were only thirty in school; among girls of secondary school age, only thirteen out of 100 were in school; and among girls of the third level, grades nine and ten, only 1.5 out of 100 were in school. Slightly higher estimates by the National Education Council for 1990 stated that 2.5 percent of students — 3 percent of men and 2 percent of women- -between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one were enrolled at the degree level. Among all people over twenty-five in 1992, women averaged a mere 0.7 year of schooling compared with an average of 2.9 years for men. *
The discrepancy between rural and urban areas is even more marked. In 1981 only 7 percent of women in rural areas were literate, compared with 35 percent in urban areas. Among men, these rates were 27 and 57 percent, respectively. Pakistan's low female literacy rates are particularly confounding because these rates are analogous to those of some of the poorest countries in the world.
Reasons For Low Female Participation in Pakistani Education
Pakistan has never had a systematic, nationally coordinated effort to improve female primary education, despite its poor standing. It was once assumed that the reasons behind low female school enrollments were cultural, but research conducted by the Ministry for Women's Development and a number of international donor agencies in the 1980s revealed that danger to a woman's honor was parents' most crucial concern. Indeed, reluctance to accept schooling for women turned to enthusiasm when parents in rural Punjab and rural Balochistan could be guaranteed their daughters' safety and, hence, their honor. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “A major problem in education in Pakistan has been the low rate of female participation and the substantial disparity between males and females in educational achievement. In 1992, among all persons above 15 years of age, only 22 percent of females were literate as against 49 percent of males. United Nations sources show that in 1990 only 30 percent of primary school age girls were in school; only 13 percent were in secondary schools; and only 1.5 percent were in grades 9 and 10. The percentage was and is even lower in rural areas, where 67 percent of the population lives. It varies from province to province from 26 percent in Punjab to a deplorable low of only 2 percent in Balochistan. Among the entire population of over 25, in 1992, females averaged a mere 0.7 year of schooling compared to an average of 2.9 years for males. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“In order to understand the low numbers in education and employment for women, one must understand that gender status in Pakistan, as in some other Muslim societies, is based on two assumptions: that women are subordinate to men and that a family's honor depends on the activities of female members of the family. Therefore, such societies believe that women's mobility should be severely restricted by encouraging them not to go outside the home. Even for those who manage to obtain higher education, the colleges and universities are segregated by gender. In general, people consider a woman — and her family — to be "shameless" if no restrictions are placed on her mobility.
“The reason for the low rate of education among females is primarily attributed to religious and social conservatism, which inhibits the movement of girls outside the home. Research conducted by Pakistan's Ministry of Women's Development and by international agencies in the 1980s and early 1990s showed that "danger to women's honor" was the parents' most crucial concern. Moreover, except in major urban centers, women are not expected to work outside the home, and more often than not it is prohibited. Even in the cities, those who do not go on to higher education (and such numbers are very high) have few employment options. Increasingly, however, because of economic pressures and rising numbers of nuclear family units who do not have the benefit of the social insurance provided by traditional extended families, many more young women have taken up employment outside their homes, and their husbands have "acquiesced." In 1981 the census reported only 5.6 percent female employment; only 4 percent of all urban women held salaried jobs. By 1988 that figure had increased to 10.2 percent. In 2000, it was estimated that the female employment had risen to 13 percent.
“The governments in Pakistan have generally been less than enthusiastic in augmenting employment options for women or in providing legal support for women's participation in the labor force. Therefore, a majority of women end up doing domestic chores or making or marketing handicrafts or embroidery products, figures for which are not entered into the labor statistics of the country. Officially, therefore, only 13 percent of women were shown as a part of the labor force. In fact, false notions of "propriety" induce families to conceal the extent of employment or work among women. All these factors — social and religious conservatism, restriction on the mobility of women, fear of "losing honor," perceived loss of dignity and status — have contributed to the widely held perception among parents in conservative urban families and generally in rural areas that the academic curriculum in schools is irrelevant to women's future roles as homemakers.
Obstacles Getting More Girls to Go to School in Pakistan
An effort has been made to get more girls in schools in Pakistan. Before mostly boys went to school in the countryside; now more and more girls are going. In the early 2000s, still more than half the girls of elementary school age were not in school. Efforts to educate females have been hampered by a lack of funds and the rising tide of Muslim extremism. Many of the madrassahs were boys have been educated are attended exclusively or predominately by boys.
Members of the Women and Children Welfare Organization, a group the provides free education and health services for women in the Takht Bai region of the northwest Pakistan, have been harassed and received death threats because the group is regarded as a forum for Western ideas.
In Takht Bai one school was closed after armed men stormed it and threatened to burn it down; another was closed after a cleric told followers to kidnap children who attended it. One mullah told Newsweek, "The women who work for NGOs are not of good character. Do not send your daughters and sisters to their schools."
Struggle for a Girl to Go to School in Pakistan
In an an article about Humaira Bachal, founder of a school in Karachi, Associated Press reported: “Like many in Pakistan's poor communities, Bachal's family didn't want to educate their daughter. She finished primary school, but her father forbade her to continue, preferring his eldest daughter get married. With her mother's help she studied in secret, hiding her school uniform and books at a friend's house. This went on for nine months until a day of reckoning she remembers as one of the most important of her life. [Source: Associated Press, March 6, 2014]
“She was preparing to go to school for a test, but her father came home early and questioned where she was going. When he discovered she had been secretly going to school, he was livid and slapped her cheek. A showdown ensued between her parents with her father beating her mother and her mother defiantly telling Bachal to go to school. "I just ran from the house and went to the school and did my exams. I was worried about my father beating my mother. I didn't know what was happening in my home," she said.
“Eventually her father agreed to let her continue her education as long as she married whomever he chose. She has yet to marry but she certainly pursued her studies. She graduated from high school, got a bachelor's degree, is studying for her master's, and learned English. Her dedication draws comparisons to 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girls' education proponent who survived being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012. Bachal said she hasn't faced any violence, just stiff resistance from community elders.”
Zubaida Jalal School
The Zubaida Jalal School is a special school set up in Mand, a remote town in Balochistan, with an emphasis on educating girls. When the school was opened the people who ran were accused of being heretics and told the “were opening the gates of hell.” Now many are grateful the school is there. Some of its graduates being breadwinners and know enough Urdu and English that can translate for their parents if they have to goto a hospital with a medial problem. [Source: Valerie Reitman, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2002]
The school was such a success that Zobaida Jalal, the founder of the school, was named the education mister of Pakistan and put in charge of opening schools like hers around the country. She was described as “very brilliant” by U.S. President George Bush.
To get the school going the Jalal family convinced the people in their community that education was important so that girls could learn to read the Quran. The students study arithmetic, algebra, Arabic, Urdu, English, social studies, current events and Islam. They learn that Islam promises them certain rights and they don’t have to marry someone they don’t want to marry and nothing in Islamic prevents them from wearing bright-colored clothing . Teachers are paid US$100 a month. About 40 percent of the girls come from families that can’t afford the US$1 to US$3 a month tuition fee. Many girls continued classes after they married. It is not uncommon to have a girl who is eight month pregnant.
'Dream' School in Poor Karachi Neighborhood
Humaira Bachal founded a charity school in Muwach Goth, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of of Karachi. At age 13, she began teaching other girls what she learned in school. Those classes developed into her school and life’s work: bringing education to children in the, where families often keep their girls out of school and where even boys struggle to get decent learning. [Source: Associated Press, March 6, 2014]
Associated Press reported: “Bachal knows firsthand how lack of education hurts her community. She had a cousin that died because his mother couldn't read the expiration date on a bottle of medicine. She knows women in her neighborhood who died giving birth at home because their families didn't know to send them to the hospital. "These things are breaking my heart and every time I am raising the question 'Why are people doing this?'" said the 26-year-old Bachal. "Maybe when my people are educated these problems would be reduced."
“So at the age of 13, she began teaching other girls what she learned in school. Those classes at home between friends grew into her life's work — bringing education to children in the working-class Muwach Goth neighborhood on the outskirts of Pakistan's port city of Karachi, where families often keep their girls out of school and where even boys struggle to get decent learning.
“Through hard work and a sweet-but-stubborn attitude, Bachal has gone from a teenager who hid her schoolbooks from her father, who opposed her education, to running a foundation that teaches 1,200 boys and girls at her Dream Model Street School. Hers is a story about the power of one woman to change not only her own future but the future of people around her — even in a society like Pakistan where entrenched rules restrict women's ability to affect change. With help from domestic and international donations — Madonna has given money — the foundation is building a new 18-room home for the school, which has grown to 33 teachers. It will be a massive improvement from their current site, a rented one-level, cinder-block building where curtains divide the classrooms.
“She started out at 13, with help from her younger sister Tahira, with a makeshift classroom in her house, teaching about 10 of her girlfriends who were not able to go to school. Within two years, she had moved her now-150 students, Tahira and three other girls who had joined as teachers into a rented building. At the same time, she lobbied families in her neighborhood to send their children to school although the reception wasn't always great. She said local elders asked her family to move, saying they weren't a good influence.
“The owner of the building she was renting tried to lock them out once. So they held classes in the street in front of the building until he relented. "The community is made up of laborers and people who are non-skilled workers. So she's had to convince them why education is important to begin with," said Academy Award-winning Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who's made a film about Bachal's school. "Here are people who have 8 or 10 children, and they want their children to work."
Students, Parents and Facilities at the 'Dream' School in Karachi
According to Associated Press: Many students at Bachal's school and their parents say she personally visited their families to convince them. And many of the mothers are sending their daughters there over the opposition of the men in their families. "I thought it might be God's help that she came to the door," said Salma Haji, a teacher who volunteered to help at the school after Bachal visited her home and who takes teacher training courses with the foundation. [Source: Associated Press, March 6, 2014]
“One parent, Ashraf Khattoon, said her father and uncle taunt her for getting her daughters an education, insisting instead they should marry. But Khattoon wants her daughters to be "civilized" and "not like me, I am illiterate." Bachal's sister Tahira, who is studying accounting, is the principal of the Dream Model Street School. The Dream Foundation, which Bachal heads, runs the school and offers mentoring programs, health screening for students and teacher training.
A government-run school just a short drive away vividly shows the dismal state of education in Pakistan. The two-story building looks abandoned, with no windows or furniture and no doors on the bathroom stalls. After class, the teacher rolls up the carpet from the concrete floor and stores it at the factory across the street so it won't get stolen.
By contrast, the new building under construction for the Dream Model Street School is an oasis of color and order. One floor has already been completed. Students sit on chairs at desks in classrooms with walls plastered with teaching aids describing vowels or endangered animals. There are separate toilets for boys and girls.
Bachal tries to employ modern teaching techniques instead of the rote memorization prevalent in Pakistan. Boys and girls attend classes together, even in upper grades, which are often segregated in Pakistan. Her father has come around to her project — and one of her three elder step-brothers sends his kids to her school. She doesn't necessarily think she's won over everyone, but she's worn them down. "Some people don't like what I'm doing but there's a way to convey the message to these kinds of people," she said.
Malala’s School in the Swat Valley
After the Taliban took over large parts of the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2007, they began a violent campaign against education for girls. This is were Nobel-laureate Malala Yousafzai went to school and was shot in the head. Over 900 girls schools were forced to close and over 120,000 girls stopped attending school. About 8,000 female teachers were driven out of work. For many girls, the loss was permanent and they did not return to school even after the Pakistan army had displaced the Taliban. [Source: Human Rights Watch, March 27, 2017]
Reporting from Mingora, at the school attended by Nobel-laureate Malala Yousafzai, Richard Leiby wrote in the Washington Post: Under a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, the ninth-grade girls clasped their chemistry texts, smoothed their white head scarves. Photos of” Malala’s “meetings with Pakistani and foreign dignitaries line the walls at the private Khushal school, run by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. Many of Malala Yousafzai’s peers, like her, are well versed in English. They come from families of educators and military officers. [Source: Richard Leiby, Washington Post, October 16, 2012
“On Monday, chemistry rules were on the lesson plan. “The oxidation number of all elements in the free-state is zero,” said the text on the instructor’s podium. Like 14-year-old girls everywhere, the students are prone to chattering, giggling and wearing chipped nail polish. But they sense no limits, looking toward careers in medicine, science and the military.
Mingora is the Swat Valley’s largest town Verdant and mountainous, Swat was once a haven for foreign tourists. In the religiously conservative, ethnically Pashtun area, residents initially embraced the imposition of Islamic law, viewing the secular government and courts as unresponsive and corrupt. But their support faded during a reign of Taliban terror from 2007 to 2009. The militants shuttered girls’ schools and blew them up. They flogged and executed people and left their bodies to rot in the town square for supposed noncompliance with the Taliban interpretation of sharia law.
“The army routed the extremists led by Maulana Fazlullah, known as Mullah Radio for his sermons broadcast on pirated FM signals, and they relocated to eastern Afghanistan. The Pakistani military estimates that Fazlullah has 1,000 men under arms. They and other militants regularly attack Pakistani security posts along the Afghan border, capturing soldiers and beheading them, but the army says the insurgents have been beaten back and are contained in a relatively small area. Out of frustration, extremists resort to “sneak attacks” like the one on Yousafzai, a senior military officer told journalists in a briefing. “It is a one-off incident. There is no question and no room for a resurgence.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (tourism.gov.pk), Official Gateway to the Government of Pakistan (pakistan.gov.pk), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022