Three million people from the FATA region moved to the adjacent province of KP due to the Pakistani military's eagerly awaited assault on the Taliban in 2002. More than 95% of locals were relocated back to their homes after militants were forced out of the area, but recovery and reconstruction are still ongoing. The unification of the FATA with the adjacent province of KP through an amendment to the Pakistani Constitution is the most significant move the government of Pakistan has lately taken toward normalising this post-war territory.
The FATA area will no longer be referred to as FATA in official correspondence, the secretariat of the chief minister of KP said in a letter to all provincial administrative agencies dated July 16, 2018. Instead, KP's "Newly Merged Districts" refer to the former FATA agencies. The FATA Secretariat, which keeps its name, will be transformed. The first stage of this process is integrating the health and education sectors into the KP Civil Secretariat.
About 1195 schools were destroyed or partially damaged during the Talibanization and militant control. Because of this, the enrolment of girls, which was already relatively low, was severely cut, depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their fundamental right to an education. Only 37% of females are enrolled in elementary schools and 5% in secondary schools, respectively, according to statistics from the NMDs' AEC. There are various causes for this sharp decline in enrolment rates.
The large displacement of the population, many of whom have remained in temporarily displaced person camps, is another element that distinguishes the NMDs from other poor areas of Pakistan and sets them apart contextually. Children living in these camps had access to temporary schools run by nongovernmental organisations to complete their education, while those who stayed behind had little to no access to it. Before 2015, when peace-building and resettlement initiatives started, this circumstance led to more females than boys dropping out of school.
There are many reasons the girls in the NMDS are not attending school.
The girls at the NMDS don't go to school for various reasons.
More than 50% of locals are below the poverty level and unable to pay for their children's education.
Only a tiny fraction of the 1,896 primary school graduates may be enrolled in high schools.
More than 50% The intent behind e Male relatives of girls' school students lack access to restrooms, running water, and power.
There is not enough transportation to get students to remote secondary schools.
There is a lack of awareness of the bigger picture behind females' education. All children's education depends on employment, but outside of teaching positions, there aren't many occupations available for women in the NMDs.
Male relatives, not dads, frequently speak out against females continuing their education.
Such an insightful post!
Apart from the cultural and religious barriers, the reasons for such a wide gender disparity also include economic and infrastructural barriers. Such limitations should be a priority on the policy agenda as these can have an immediate impact as compared to long-term ideological changes that would help break cultural and religious limitations.
Additionally, a few questions came to my mind while reading the post. Can the FATA region be referred to as a post-conflict area with the return of TTP? Should the education policies and curriculum be based on post-conflict or ongoing conflict? How would education continue in such a situation, especially female education which is already highly opposed by the TTP?
This was a very interesting read! Your post points out a lot of important factors as to why there is an increasing gender gap when it comes to educational prospects. What caught my attention the most were the statistics you have shared. Through the first figure, we see that as years go by enrollment in schools of young girls has been decreasing. One would think that as time changes, there will be improvements, but that is not supported by the statistics. Some reasons of this could just be how there is a lack of educational facilities required by young girls, such as restrooms, etc. Secondly and more importantly, there is lack of safety due to talibinization which has made the parents…