Right to education.

Byline: Marvi Soomro

EDUCATION is a child's basic right. Even in times of conflict, war or disaster, temporary learning opportunities are set up as part of emergency relief to provide continued learning support.

Pakistan has an estimated 22.8 million children from five to 16 outside school. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and consequent school closures have resulted in millions more deprived of learning opportunities.

The disparity in education in Pakistan rears its ugly head again as millions of students face learning losses. Major barriers like the digital divide and the weakness of education systems threaten to increase further the vastly unequal learning opportunities available to the economically, geographically or politically disadvantaged.

According to data from the PTA website, 31.19 per cent of Pakistanis have access to the internet. For children belonging to the 68.8pc population without internet access, this pandemic means losing not just the only thing that provides routine - school - but also being deprived of their right to learn.

Low-income households in Pakistan do not have computer hardware. Out of the 78pc population that has mobile subscriptions, 35.9pc is online. Children from families that make up the 42pc not using 3G/4G - or the 22pc that do not have mobile subscriptions - have limited learning opportunities.

While we may have budding tech start-ups with millions of dollars of funding directed towards them, technology access, affordability and internet penetration are still out of the reach of millions.

Who will be held responsible for the students' losses?

There are also areas where the digital divide is essentially caused in the name of political gains or matters of 'national security'. These areas, even in today's 'digital Pakistan', are not connected to the rest of this country or the global world because they lack basic internet connections and at times even mobile networks. Schoolchildren in these regions are deprived of every learning opportunity right now. University students suffer the same fate. Lockdowns forced students to return to their hometowns but then classes were shifted online with mandatory attendance requirements. Students of Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir are frustrated because they do not have the internet access required to attend online classes. Who will take responsibility for the losses incurred by these students? Will the telecom network that has monopolised internet provision in the...

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