Mithi (Parliament Times) : The destiny of Thar and its people is in question, as the government and certain corporate organizations working on Thar Coal do believe that Thar will change the destiny of Pakistan, but have ever they thought of destiny of Thar and its people, who are devoid of even proper education facilities?
It has been observed that the coal-mining companies are mainly focusing on developing the areas falling in the Thar Coal blocks while the government has concentrated establishing the educational facilities at Mithi, the headquarter town of desert district Tharparkar, while the vast and far flung areas of rest of the district remain neglected.(Talukas) namely Mithi, Islamkot, Diplo, Nagarparkar, Chhachhro, Dahli and recently announced Kaloi. The district has two seats in national assembly, of one, NA-221 constituency consists of three subdivisions i.e. Nagarparkar, Chhachhro and Dahli, but surprisingly, there is no degree or even the intermediate college except some higher secondary schools.According to official statistics, the Tharparkar district, having a population of 1.65 million according to 2017 census, has a total of 3873 primary schools (most of them closed) with enrollment of 190370 students (105494 boys, 84876 girls); 234 Middle Schools with enrollment of only 15052 (8587 boys, 6465 girls); only 40 secondary schools where 12130 students including 7833 boys and 4297 girls are enrolled
while the entire district has only five higher secondary schools with enrollment of 3651 students (3275 boys and only 376 girls).Out of five government higher secondary schools, two are in Chhachharo subdivision – one at Chhachhro and another at Janjhi named as Govt. Sachal Janjhi Higher Secondary School. Similarly, an intermediate college is established at Diplo and another at Kaloi.The Mithi, has fortunately two degree colleges – Sadiq Fakir Boys Degree College and the other one for girls, being the district headquarter town. In such a situation, the students from three subdivisions – Chhachhro, Dahli and Nagarparkar have to get admissions either in degree colleges of Mithi or Umerkot to continue further studies. The students of these far flung divisions bordering India have to face financial and other hardships for their studies. In certain cases the poor students give up further studies as their parents cannot afford financial expenditures to be incurred on food and accommodation, travelling etc. of their children. The result is that the number of students drops drastically as is evident from the statistics given above – from primary to higher secondary level.
Chhachhro, created as subdivision with 40 Dehs (revenue unit) during the British Raj in 1906. Currently it has 19 Dehs, as it was divided by PPP government to carve out new subdivision Dahli during its previous tenure. Certain Dehs of Chhachro were also linked to Mithi subdivision. The total population of Chhachhro is said to be 350,000 with poverty ratio of 87 percent. Even geographically, it has vast area spread over 4744 square kilometers.
Students of chahcro taluka Mumtaz Samejo, Students Activist Tariq Aziz Rind,Zakar Ahmed said that they have to travel 100 to 150 kilometers in case of daily outback for attending degree classes at Mithi or Umerkot. “The boys have to travel or walk for upto ten kilometers even for attending classes in secondary schools. And since the girls cannot face such hardships, they discontinue further studies,” they said.
The government has launched the projects of NED Engineering University Campus and certain other campus at Mithi, which is commendable, but it must also focus on providing better educational facilities to the youths of other remote subdivision also.