Profiling of out of school girls in district Tharparkar, identifying the barriers, create

hindrance for marginalized girls in access and retention to school

Global Level:

Social and economic benefits of girls education on national development and meeting

international goals for universal education, and gender equality have been acknowledged and

efforts have been made for getting girls educated but due to some key factors that create

challenges in achieving the intended results. (UNGI & GPE, 2014) It is estimated that 124

million children of school going age are out of school, 53% of them are girls. (GPE website,

UNICEF 2016) It has no more an unrecognized fact that rural children, low-income children, and

children from ethnic minorities are at risk of remaining out of school and dropping out from

schools. (World Bank 2005b; UIS 2005; Wils, Carrol, and Barrow 2005; Lloyd 2005; Birdsall,

Levine, and Ibrahim 2005 as cited in Lewis and Lockheed 2008, p. 3). Lewis and Lockheed

(2006) estimate that girls from excluded groups make up more than 70 percent of the

millions of out-of-school girls in the developing world (cited in Lewis and Lockheed 2008, p.

2)

Marline Lockheed 2008 in world banks report Girls Education in the Twenty-first

Century writes that girls from socially excluded communities are less likely to enroll in

school, retain and transit to secondary education. She presented an analysis data from 120

countries, which includes Pakistan as well. She highlighted the variance in girls enrollment and

retention numbers as compare to boys in different social and demographic settings in Pakistan.
 Pakistan is home to four major ethnic groups (Baluchi, Punjabi, Pushtun, and Sindhi),

their geographic location is roughly mirrored by provincial boundaries, thus making it

impossible to disentangle ethnic and other cultural differences in enrollment from provincial

differences.3 (Lloyd, Mete, & Grant, 2007. P. 104)

Pakistans Current population 192.8 million, estimates different human rights and United

Nations reports. Although, Muslims are in majority of 96% there is multi layered stratification

within Muslims. There are different religious sects within these two subdivisions, Shia and Sunni

and other demographic divisions among Muslim majority. (Hussain, 2005, p. 146) In addition,

there are distinctions based on caste, class, denomination, along with age, ethnic, gender, rural

and urban exist within both majority Muslim and other minority groups. (Malik 2002, p.10)

In a largely agriculture-based economy of rural Pakistan, social stratification is based on

possession of the land into landed gentry, landless peasants, and lower-class occupations, the

latter comprising occupations such as the lohar (blacksmiths), nai (barbers), mochi (cobblers),

kamhar (potters), qassab (butchers), mirasi (wedding singers) and other groups (Lafrance 2002).

These professional stigmatized groups are known as Schedule caste or Dalits. Government law

declared forty scheduled castes tribes including Bheel, Bagri, Balmeke, Menghwar, Kholhi, Oad

and Bhangi etc They are settled mostly in lower Sindh, particularly in the districts of Mirpurkhas,

Umerkot and Tharparkar. (p. 6) It is estimated that 93percent of schedule caste community live in

rural areas (p. 26 These schedule caste communities, poor, majority is illiterate, landless,

assets less farmers, migrant, trapped in bonded labor, high number of child labor. (p. 29)

Poverty is not a single cause of not sending children to school, social, religious caste based factor

discourage them to access to education institutions. (p. 31) These castes are ostracized by the

members of the privileged Hindu castes as well as Muslims. (Shah, 2007, p. 6)

 According to different non-governmental agencies working on education reforms, 25

millions of children between the ages of 5-16 years are out of school in Pakistan. Among them

55% are girls and this number stand 57% in Sindh province. Their 2015 report shows that how

the number of out of school children in primary school raise with from 22% to 85% at higher

secondary school level. (p. 15) Girls and rural, and low income families children are in majority

in this figure. (UNICEF 2013 and Alif Ailaan 2014 report) The SEMIS 2014-2015 report of

district Tharparkar shows that girls enrollment at primary level is 39% as compare to 61% of

boys and situation is worst when it comes to high school (Grade 9-10) it shows only 16% as

compare to 84% for boys enrollment in Tharparkar. According to TRDP baseline survey report

2007 only 40% of school going age were enrolled in school, 18% were dropout and 42%

children never enroll in the school. It has been identified that majority of the out of school

children are girls, from low income, and marginalized communities.

As, Tharparkar is one the remotest and disadvantaged district of Sindh, Pakistan.

According to official data 40% Hindu and 60% Muslims communities reside in the arid zone

area. Majority of Hindu population is from schedule caste. It is estimated that 45 percent of

total schedule caste population lives in district Tharparkar. (Shah, 2007, p. 59) In addition to

the discrimination on the basis of caste is reported at both fellow students and teacher level,

discriminatory and biased curriculum that portray minority groups negatively and non-Muslim

students are required to take subjects contrary to their beliefs. These discriminatory factors are

some of the reasons of dropping out. (p. 60) Shah, 2007 presents that 76% of survey

respondents shared about the discrimination in schools with their children on basis of caste.

(p. 61)
 During reviewing the studies at global, national and state level it was noticed that there is

good volume of research on the issue out of school, the reasons of lack of access to school and

retention and transition to secondary school, but the question of who these children are? is partly

answered. For example, it is clear that girls, from rural, low-income, marginalized communities

are in majority in total out of school population but the question of exact number of those girls is

unanswered. And the interaction between gender and these cultural categories are less examined

at international forums. As a result, issues of excluded girls are highlighted but not address due to

unavailability of data. (Lewis and Lockheed. 2007, p. 3) This study will answer the question of

who these out of school girls are? By conducting a study in district Tharparkar. As Tharparkar

district has mixed population of both Muslim and Hindu (mostly schedule caste communities) it

will help in answering the question of how many of out of schools belong to schedule caste

communities? Are the barriers for both dominated and suppressed caste girls are same? This

study will help in understanding how intersection of caste with gender, class and other cultural

categories have impact on girls poor access and retention in the school in Tharparkar and issues

of marginalized girls will be identified and addressed to ensure access and retention of girls in

the schools in Tharparkar.

Purpose of the Study:

The purpose of the study is to test the hypothesis that majority of out of school girls are from

schedule caste communities and to explore the differences in the barriers for girls from scheduled

caste and dominated caste out of school girls in access, retention in the schools.

Key questions of this study are:

1. Who are those out of school girls? What is the number of schedule caste girls in total out

of school children and out school girls specifically?

 1.1 What is the breakup of total out of school children? Total children? Total girls? And total

schedule caste communities girls?

2. To what extent the barriers for out of school girls differ for scheduled caste and

dominated caste girls in access, and retention in school?

2.1 Access
2.1.1 To what extent equality in access to education opportunities differ?
2.1.2 Availability of school
2.1.3 Distance to school?
2.1.4 Availability of teacher and specifically teacher from the same community
2.2 Barriers
2.2.1 Teachers attitude towards girls from both groups
2.2.2 Attitude of fellow students for both groups of girls
2.2.3 Difference in parents income of family in both groups
2.2.4 Difference in understanding on the importance of education general and girls

education specifically

References:

Hussain, R. (2005). The effects of religious, cultural and social identity on population structure

among Muslims in Pakistan. Annals of Human Biology, 32(2), 145-153.

Khan. Irfan. (2007) TRDP Baseline survey report. The time press (Pvt) ltd

Lewis, M., & Lockheed, M. (2007). Social exclusion and the gender gap in education. In

Exclusion, Gender and Education P. 1-27

Lockheed, M. (2008). The double disadvantage of gender and social exclusion in education.

In Girls' Education in the Twenty-First Century. World Bank Publications.

Lloyd, C., Mete, C., & Grant, M. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and

culture. Exclusion, Gender and Education, 99-118.

Malik, I. H. (2002). Religious minorities in Pakistan (Vol. 6). London: Minority rights group

international

Murphy-Graham, E., & Lloyd, C. (2016). Empowering adolescent girls in developing countries:

The potential role of education. Policy Futures in Education, 14(5), 556-577.

Shah, Z. (2007). Long behind schedule. A study on the plight of scheduled caste Hindus in

Pakistan. Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) & International Dalit Solidarity

Network (IDSN)(submitted).

UNICEF Report (2013) Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children: Out of school children in

Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh Provinces of Pakistan. UNICEF

Pakistan Country Office

UNICEF (2016). The state of worlds children 2016. Retrieved from:

https://www.unicef.org/sowc2016/

UNGI & GPE. (2014). Accelerating secondary education for girls: Focusing on access and

retention. Retrieved from: http://www.globalpartnership.org/