“THE RIGGED SOLUTION”
Hopes of social transformations and eradicating societal inequalities are often placed on education, but what if the same institutions and the system that is supposed to eliminate societal inequalities is the start amplifying and perpetuating these problems? Well, that's precisely the predicament that we're looking at, the Pakistani education system. A multi-layered gendered system that continues to perpetuate inequality and blatant ignorance. Due to this institutionalized gender inequality not only the number of female students in educational institutions is considerably low than male students.
"There are almost 22.5 million kids out of school. Girls are affected in particular. In Pakistan, 32% of girls in primary school age are out of school, compared with 21% of boys. By sixth grade, 59% of girls are out of school, compared to 49% of boys. Just 13 percent of girls in ninth grade are still in school." (IMTIAZ, Girls’ education).
Even if women somehow manage to get education the content of the textbooks in particular and the curriculum in general does more harm than good in helping young women instead it reinforces the already obsolete ideals of citizenship, moral. Ethics and gender roles.
According to UNESCO's (2004) study on textbooks (for Class 1 to 10th) in Pakistan, only 7.7% female personalities were represented in the textbooks analyzed, among 251 overall personalities. The study also reported that representation of women's historical struggle in the independence movement in the subcontinent had also been neglected in the textbooks analyzed. Only 0.9% of the historical personalities in the textbooks were females.
https://nation.com.pk/09-Dec-2019/girls-education
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539517302145