Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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),
impossible to disentangle ethnic and other cultural differences in enrollment from provincial
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)
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
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
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 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.
1. Who are those out of school girls? What is the number of schedule caste girls in total out
2. To what extent the barriers for out of school girls differ for scheduled caste and
education specifically
References:
Hussain, R. (2005). The effects of religious, cultural and social identity on population structure
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
Lockheed, M. (2008). The double disadvantage of gender and social exclusion in education.
Lloyd, C., Mete, C., & Grant, M. (2007). Rural girls in Pakistan: Constraints of policy and
international
Murphy-Graham, E., & Lloyd, C. (2016). Empowering adolescent girls in developing countries:
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
https://www.unicef.org/sowc2016/
UNGI & GPE. (2014). Accelerating secondary education for girls: Focusing on access and