Causes Of Women Illiteracy In Pakistan
(ozair ahmad mamsa, karachi)
Man is composed of two basic
elements i.e nature and nurture. In upbringing process, parents have a major
participation in which mother offers an ample share. Thus an educated mother
will lay the foundation of healthy civilized family. So we can say that the
entire personality of a person is an outcome of his mother’s training.
The constitution of Pakistan provides full participation of women in all spheres
of life constituting more than 50% of the total population, but the literacy
rate in females is just 36% as compared to men that is 64%. The ratio of primary
schools for girls and boys is 4 and 10 respectively.Such attitude of
discrimination is not new in the educational system of Pakistan. Pakistan
inherited it from the history. After 1857 when Sir Syed came on the surface with
the slogan of educational improvement of the muslims but the women were ignored.
At that time books like “Bahishti Zaiwar”, “Miratul Uroos” popped up to identify
the limits for the women. The object of these books were the negation of
awareness to women and their confinement to the family only.
Moulvi Mumtaz Ali Khan researched and wrote a book named “Huqook-e- Niswan”. Sir
Syed advised him not to publish the book. Sir Syed was of view that modern
education could bring instability in the lives of women and ignorance of their
right would make them contented. Despite, Moulvi Mumtaz published his book which
faced stiff resistance from the literate male class of the Muslims.
Religiously, people are of the view that Islam does not permit a women or girls
to step beyond the limits of house. Modern education can make her a party girl
instead of making her a house wife. That’s why Taliban are blasting and
attacking the girl’s schools in Swat and Northern areas of Pakistan. However,
the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) strongly emphasized on education by saying that, “It
is the prime duty of men and women to acquire education”.
The first cause of women illiteracy is the increase in population, which is
playing a negative role in this deprivation of female education. A family having
more number of children and less income will prefer to educate the boys of the
family, while the girls will be given embroidery or sewing skills. Secondly,
there is also a misconception that females merely have to manage a home after
being married where as males have to earn so education matters only for males
but not for females. Thirdly, we have observed that traditionally, women are
considered as the asset of males of the family. So these males are responsible
for taking decisions of their lives. In most cases, males donot allow their
sisters or daughters to goto schools or universities. Additionally, some
families do not like their daughters to study in co-education institutes thus
depriving them of higher education. Fourthly, the social setup is a male
dominated one. Girls cannot move freely thus any male of the family has to take
responsibility of her care. This sometimes seems difficult to them. There is
also a sharp division between female oriented work and male oriented work.
Females are not allowed to work in all spheres of life therefore their education
is not considered valuable. Fifthly, the number of schools and colleges for
females are very less. Girls have to travel a long distance to reach the schools
or colleges, for this reason most of the parents prefer to give them religious
education. Lastly, every government talks about the importance of female
education but none of them has given attention to it. In Multan the plan of
separate women university and women medical college was announced yet these
plans have not seen the light of the day.
Media brought awareness to the people thus bringing female fighter pilots in PAF
and projecting women in every sphere of life. Islam does not restrict education
to females. Islam is a flexible religion and it allows equal opportunities of
education to both sexes. The need is to interpret it in its real essence. Last
but not the least, no society can progress by restricting more than half of its
population in the abyss of ignorance and a maze of undue limits. Nepolean once
said about the role of mothers in building process of a nation that,
“Give me the best mothers, I will give you the best nation.”