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Islamabad has lowest gender literacy gap
Islamabad, Nov 26, 2007: Pakistan ranks at 120 among 146 countries on Gender Development
Index (GDI) that includes literacy, combined primary, secondary and tertiary
gross enrolment, mortality indicators and share in total income, says a report.
The report titled 'Food Insecurity in Urban Pakistan,' which is to be
released shortly by the World Food Programme (WFP), says that out of 111 total
districts, 40 have gender literacy gap of 50 percent and above with majority of
them in Balochistan, NWFP and FATA.
The highest literacy gap of 80-84
percent is in four districts, three of which are in Balochistan and one in
FATA.
The report says that lower literacy gap is observed in only 11
districts, with eight of them in Punjab. It points out that Islamabad has the
lowest gender gap in literacy rate at 7.4 per cent while the highest gap is in
Khyber Agency at 84 per cent.
According to the report, literacy rate is
one of the important indicators of human development. The gender gap in literacy
determines the level of social development of individual sex. The narrow the
literacy gap the narrow the deprivation between male and female.
It also
states that areas with low economic development, in most of the cases, have
wider gender gap.
According to the report, in Islamabad Capital
Territory (Urban), there are 62 mixed-schools and no separate boys' or girls'
schools in the primary education sector. It says that mixed schools reflect
resource constraints to have separate girls' and boys' schools as well as social
acceptance for co-education at primary level.
Describing the situation
in other parts of the country, it says that there are three regions that
practice the mixed primary education system - Sindh and Federally Administered
Northern Areas in both rural and urban settings and in ICT.
In Sindh and
FANA, four districts have less than 20 per cent mixed schools, nine of them have
21-40 per cent, five between 41-60 per cent, two between 61-80 per cent and one
district has above 81 per cent share of mixed schools.
The document says
that the district level female/male ratio of primary schools, primary school
teachers and enrolment varies from province to province. According to
statistics, districts in both Balochistan and NWFP seem to rank low whereas
those in Azad Kashmir, Sindh and Punjab as well as ICT (Islamabad) seem to rank
high on the selected indicator.
It points out that ratio of female
primary schools to male primary schools is only three per cent in Pishin, nine
per cent in Killa Abdullah, 15 per cent in Pangur and 17 per cent in Killa
Saifullah in Balochistan. Poonch, Bagh and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir have
ratio ranging between 300-650 per cent.
Regarding female-male primary
school teachers' ratio, Pishin in Balochistan is again the lowest ranked at only
two per cent. Dera Bugti, Killah Abdullah, Killa Saifullah, Bolan and Panjgur
rank at seven per cent to 18 per cent.
Female enrolment statistics in
urban Balochistan in the districts Dera Bugti, Pangur, Pishin, and Awaran show
low female-male ratio ranging from 13 per cent to 18 per cent.
However,
altogether 34 districts of Pakistan, Azad Kashmir and FANA have a ratio of more
than 100 per cent, which is very encouraging. The highest ratio is in two remote
areas of Battagram and Kohistan in NWFP - 4.9:1 and 9.9:1 respectively. The News
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