Assessing the Impact of Government Initiatives on Women’s Education Status in Pakistan

Abstract

Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as an independent state came into existence on 14th August 1947. The Government of Pakistan holds its self-responsible to fulfill and ensure the provision of basic human rights including education, to all its citizens. Education has great importance in general and for women in particular. It also plays a major role towards uplifting of society and its qualitative contributions in economic prosperity. Women comprise about half of the total population in Pakistan (i.e. 49 percent of the total population) and actively participate side by side with men in many fields of life. However, women have remained deprived of their basic human rights including education. Government of Pakistan has made serious efforts to upgrade women’s education status. However, the scenario of women’s education in Pakistan is not satisfactory. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the role of Government of Pakistan in education sector during past decades with special focus on the status of women’s education. Furthermore, the study focuses on identifying major factors that supposed to be responsible for low rate of women’s education in Pakistan. Different indicators including education policy, five-year plans, literacy rates, enrolment trends, female teachers in education institutions and government education expenditure has been selected for study. The results of the study show that besides all the aforementioned initiatives, the situation of women’s education has not shown satisfactory improvement. The government is still not able to achieve the required education standard. It is suggested that Government of Pakistan should have to develop a strong and effective education system with proper policy implementation.