Education

Chitral (14850sqkm) is one of the remotest and impoverished districts to the extreme north of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan with a population of about 500000 individuals, most of whom living bellow poverty line. The unabated growth of population has adversely affected the social and economic indicators of the local communities over the years amidst the reality that no serious attention is given to education, the most vital sector of development. Thus the sufferings of the low-income earning segment of the society have intensified leading to a religious extremism and lack of tolerance directly related to poverty and hunger.

In such a socio-economic scenario, Ms Wendy Finet and Mr Jurgen Depicker    , the two Belgian friends of us visited the region as back as 1995 and decided to volunteer their life for the social and economic upliftment of the downtrodden and impoverished people through a system of education specially designed for the children of low-income earning families. First, they helped built the Pamir public school in Booni by contributing more than 4000 library books besides imparting training to the students in library management. In 2002 they moved to Kosht, another backward and impoverished village that deserved their attention.  

Ever since, the school, namely Ibn Batuta Community School Kosht is working to produce a cadre of efficient and worthy citizens with a sense of civic responsibilities, positive outlook and greater commitments marked by tolerance, liberal-mindedness and freedom of thinking. The school has been focusing on gender equity and women economic empowerment most importantly. It must be noted that lack of standard but affordable system of education has resulted in social and communal polarization leading to creating numerous interest groups in the given society. Thus Ibn Batuta Community School is all-out with its well-articulated pro-poor system of education to put things right.   

Whether the present system of education in Pakistan in Pakistan is poor-friendly? Definitely not! The system of education in the government sector is open for students from both poor and rich families, but technically it is a centre of learning only for the students with poor family background. Wealthy families always select private schools for their children. Here the curriculum is not in line with the needs of the ever changing world and hence students are less likely to groom up and prepare for the challenges ahead of them. Till class 9th and 10th, Urdu is the only medium of teaching, whilst students have to write the metric examination in English language. This is a paradoxical notion of education that makes students totally confused and amounts to destroying their educational career. From class 10th onward, they have to focus on English language requiring them additional time, efforts and energies.

With the local private [non-government] schools, there are also potential problems: First, the fee structure of the private schools is beyond the financial capacity of the poor families and hence, they are less likely to be admitted in these institutions, which otherwise would have heralded an era of change in their life.

Second, the text books are quite expensive and students from poor families could hardly afford buying them, whilst private schools—only IBCSK exempted—do not have any system of charity in place for the welfare of the poor students e.g. by providing them free text books and so on. This causes greater frustration amongst the less and non-income earning families and their children.

Third, the system of examination is faulty, that is to say, no proper criteria and professional system is in place to analyze and categorize students according to their real worth. Bogus marks are awarded in order to maintain the so-called 'dignity' and ‘reputation’ of the schools. The trend to detaining students is very less lest their parents would get them withdrawn. This means students’ worth is neither measured nor sincere and serious efforts are made to make it an integral part of the educational system in most of the private schools. The only consideration is doing lucrative business through education. The difficult nature of text books poses serious challenges to the less efficient teachers in these schools, who are less likely to come up to the expectations of their students. In some cases teachers are dumbfounded when students prove more efficient than teachers! But teachers, particularly in private schools have their own problems. They are the most neglected segment of the society to avail teaching as a profession when they fail to find jobs somewhere else. It is quite an unfortunate when professional education and its relation with community development is viewed in the kaleidoscope of modern age!

Fourth, to attract more students to private schools, you have to have a strong clanship in the Hindukush region notwithstanding however weak your school might be in terms of standard and professional excellence. Never mind your fellow clan members will come to rescue you by sending their children and relatives to your schools, not to the one of your contestant! It is worth noting that clanship and interest groups based on petty tribal affiliations seems to have a decisive role in all matters of life including education within private institutions.

As an excellent educational institution, Ibn Batuta Community School Kosht has the following characteristics:  

·         An ideal premises, location and infrastructure of the school that has airy and capacious classrooms with abundant daylight build through the financial support of the government of Belgian and Japan.

·         Hostel facility with reasonable charges for the children of low-income earning families in the remote villages and far-flung valleys of upper Chitral. It is the educational policy of the school to provide more opportunities to the students of backward regions through providing accommodation facilities and to keep them under supervision even after School

• Transportation services for the students of the nearby villages to keep them from physical and mental exhaustion so that they will save time and energy to concentrate on their study

• Well-equipped science laboratory—a rarity in the region—to give practical orientation to students and to harmonize the text book theory to a measurable and verifiable lab-based exercises/tests/practices.

• Efficient, cooperative and friendly team of teachers working under the capable supervision of Ms Wendy Finet, the principal of the school and Mr Jurgen Depicker    .

• The school is the first one to introduce the Computer lab with modern facilities accessible to students from class 1st to 10th.

• Abundant teaching aids available to every class to ascertain concrete teaching methodology

• ECD [Early Childhood Development] class for the minors managed under trained and experienced lady teachers.  

• Provision of free Oxford text books from the library to the students in consideration of the high prices of such books in the market. In many respects, buying standard text book is beyond the purchasing power of the financially weak parents.

• Modern library containing more than 6000 books, from where students as well as the young educated people of the villages can take benefit.

• In keeping with its strategy to reduce poverty through standard but cheap educational services for poor families, IBCSK has always kept its fee structure at the lowest as compared to other schools in the region, to make it affordable to the low-income earning families

• Facility of an open play ground adjacent to the school plus sports equipments available to students right from class 1st to 10th

We would like the support of philanthropists and charity organizations worldwide to please help us in mitigating the hardships of the communities in the Hindukush, one of the most impoverished and backward regions of Pakistan.  You can please visit our website: www.batutaschool.org to know more about the school and its activities.