The Mouza Census 2020 issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has revealed that only 64 percent of Pakistan’s rural areas have primary schools for girls.
The report highlights a worrisome decline in educational facilities for girls in rural areas. Accordingly, 81 percent of the rural areas had primary schools for girls in 2008, but this figure declined massively to just 64 percent by 2020.
The statistics for girls’ middle schools are equally troublesome — only 30 percent of the rural areas had them in 2008, and the figure declined to just 25 percent by 2020.
Conversely, there has been an improvement in the number of high/higher secondary schools. Only nine percent of the rural areas had high/higher secondary schools for girls, and this figure grew to 11 percent by 2020.
A breakdown of the statistics reveals that the facility of primary schools for girls in rural areas is the highest (78 percent)Â in Punjab. This is followed by the Federal Capital at 65 percent, 61 percent in Sindh, 55 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and 33 percent in Balochistan.
Islamabad had the highest number of middle schools for girls in its rural areas (35 percent) of its rural areas in 2020, followed by Punjab (31 percent), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (25 percent), Sindh (21 percent), and Balochistan (11 percent).
Despite an overall increase in facilities, the country’s rural areas paint a bleak picture when it comes to high/higher secondary schools. The federal capital leads again with high/higher secondary schools for girls in 26 percent of its rural areas. It is followed by Punjab (13 percent, KP (12 percent), Sindh (nine percent), and Balochistan (five percent).
Statistics also reveal that educational facilities for boys have been given more importance as the percentage of rural areas having primary, middle, and high/higher secondary schools registered a considerable increase in 2020 as compared to 2008.
