Pakistan’s rural population is disproportionately affected by the low quality of the public education system, with girls and young women the most underserved. Of the 20 million children not going to school, 4 out of 5 live in rural parts of the country, and of those, 60 percent are girls. Education exclusion for girls is compounded when location disadvantage intersects with income, spoken language, religion, caste/kin, and parents’ education. The problem of schools not reaching rural girls living in poverty demands a holistic examination, capturing the nuances that arise due to the economic and social contexts. If inequalities surrounding schools and children are not considered in policy responses, they permeate into classrooms and pathways beyond education, rather than generating new opportunities.

Sindh, the second-most populated province in Pakistan, has the largest disparity between urban and rural areas and the lowest school participation rates for rural girls in the country, making it a critical area to address social inequities if the country is to make significant progress in improving overall education outcomes. However, education inequity is expected to further increase due to climate-intensified floods that hit large swathes of rural Sindh in August 2022, which in addition to interrupting access to school and learning, also worsened poverty, nutrition, and health indicators. To arrest these trends that have the potential to further amplify exclusion from schooling, efforts to rehabilitate communities and schools must consider both the urgent and long-term needs and aspirations of children in rural areas, so they are able to (re)enter, learn, and thrive in schools.

As a 2022 Echidna Global Scholar, I conducted research to understand the economic and social context of rural communities in Sindh and the education needs and aspirations of families and children. Over the summer of 2022, I visited eight settlements in four districts across Sindh, so as not to fall into the traditional trap of considering rural communities a homogenous group. Based on prior experiences of working with populations with limited exposure to schooling, I used a mix of visual-based activities and structured focus group discussions. My research assistant and I worked with children, mothers, and fathers to design an ideal school. Based on photographs we provided, they chose the type of school building, means to get to school, teacher actions in the classroom, learning activities for children, and ancillary services they would like in their school; the design of this ideal school by children and parents informed both the findings and policy recommendations.

Read the full article about rural girls in Pakistan by Hina Saleem at Brookings.