PM calls for joint efforts for creating educational opportunities for girls

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called upon the global and local organizations, philanthropists and entrepreneurs to join them in creating scalable and sustainable opportunities for ensuring education to women.

Addressing a two-day International Conference on “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” as a chief guest, the prime minister said that in the next decade, millions of young girls would enter the jobs market with immense prospects for social and economic prosperity.

“As they do so, they have the potential to not just lift themselves, their families and the nation out of the poverty but also to enrich the global economy, new markets and find innovative solutions to their shared challenges,” he observed.

The prime minister also stressed that they should assure the womenfolk that their rights should be respected and their ambitions be met, besides, no cultural or social impediment stood in the way of achieving their dreams.

He said despite their rich legacy, the Islamic world, including Pakistan, was facing numerous challenges in ensuring actable access to education for girls, adding that denying education to girls, amounted to denying their rights and voice and denying them their right to bright future.

In Pakistan, the prime minister said the women made half of the total population, yet the female literacy rate stood at 49 percent only, while alarmingly around 22.8 million children, with age bracket of five to eight years, were out of schools, including a proportionate number of girls.

The inadequate infrastructure, safety concerns, as well as deeply entrenched societal norms further exacerbated the issue, creating a cycle of deprivation, spanning over spans of generations, he regretted.

The prime minister said the founding father Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a strong advocate for women’s role in the national building.

The prime minister further elaborated that one of the major steps to addressing the educational disparities in Pakistan was the establishment of Danish schools during his tenure as chief minister Punjab.

The conference aims at addressing the challenges and opportunities in advancing girls’ education across Muslim communities worldwide; foster dialogue; and find actionable solutions to address the challenges.