Status of women development in Pakistan—II

Education

The free and compulsory primary education has been focused in each successive government’s education policy, but the programme was never implemented in letter and spirit. Resultantly, goals set under SDGs, particularly those relating to primary education for all, remained low by great margin from the target. Resultantly, Pakistan is faced with the lowest literacy rate and a glaring inequality in education gender wise.

According to recent Human Development report, published by UNDP, regarding gender gap, Pakistan has been placed at 145th position out of 146 countries surveyed. Only 27.9 percent of females of the age 15 and above are literate. As per statics of 2022, there were 80 percent and 55 percent literacy rates in urban and rural areas, respectively, of the country. In rural areas, female enrolment rate is around 42 percent. Female enrolment was recorded highest at primary level, but seems to decrease progressively at secondary, college and tertiary levels.

Keeping in view the size of the social sector development programme, there is a need to increase allocations for education and health sectors. The present allocation for education, being 2.7 percent of GNP or 8.8 percent of total government expenditures, is woefully low.

Status of women development in Pakistan–I

However, it is a matter of satisfaction that new education policy has its focus on technical education, particularly on information technology for women.

In recent years, non-governmental sector’s role has gained a lot of importance in developing and implementing social sector initiatives. Donor agencies and government itself have inducted notable NGOs for promoting female education in less-developed areas of all the four provinces speedily, realizing the fact that education besides having its intrinsic worth has impact on human capital, productivity and capabilities for participation and social interaction.

Economic empowerment

According to Human Development report of 2022, population earning dollars two or less per day exceeds 84% of the total population. Nearly 70 percent of this poverty-stricken population of Pakistan is women. In order to eradicate poverty and empower women economically, their participation in economic process needs to be enhanced.

In recent years there has been substantial increase in urban women participation in economic activity due to increase in the number of educated women, rising cost of living and successive governments’ objective of mainstreaming women in economic process.

Despite increasing involvement of women in economic activity, there is wide gender gap regarding size of earnings. The human development report depicts a woman’s earnings equivalent to US dollar 916 against 2,884 of man. The report also reveals that employment of women in Agriculture is 66 percent of total female population, whereas male employment ratio in agriculture is only 41 percent.

Females’ average contribution to total family income has improved to 39 percent. This is mainly due to increasing responsibilities imposed on women to maintain not only themselves, but also their rapidly growing families. Resultantly, their deployment in informal sector continues to increase.

Women’s share in formal sector, particularly in civil and financial services, has enhanced considerably. In NPS grades 16 to 22 their percentage has improved to 11 percent, whereas in lower scales it continues to be 5 percent for last 10 years. In financial sector, women employees’ strength has got doubled in last 10 years and women have been provided opportunities to elevate themselves to clinch top and senior management positions.

Actual need is to look into plight of women in informal sector where legal and economic rights are being denied due to lacunae in labor laws relating to the fields where most women work. Hence informal sector is needed to be documented, making registration of each employee of business units compulsory irrespective of its size to remove all exploitations of workers.

The reserved quota for women in all civil services and public sector corporations needs to be enhanced to 20% at least and to be monitored strictly.

Government’s initiatives to motivate women to become self–employed deserve appreciation. Women have been given easy access to credit through specialized financial institutions like First Women Bank and SME Bank and also Micro Credit Banks both in public and private sectors. The recent involvement of Export Promotion Bureau and Chambers of Commerce and Industry to improve business and technical skills of businesswomen is really commendable.

Creation of separate chambers of trade and commerce is yet another advantageous step to promote businesses of women. They organize seminars and technical courses on continuous basis for the purpose, and to create market for their products, exhibitions are being held both abroad and within the country. This will go a long way in motivating women to set up businesses not only for their own economic well-being, but also for the country’s overall economic development.

Further, historically, women now have the largest-ever representation in Assemblies, Senate and Local governments. They will have parliamentary strength to influence legislative processes for reviewing all discriminatory laws against women and also to prevail upon economic managers of the country to make greater allocations for social sector and women development in particular.

(Concluded)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024