The Inequality in Education

As a child, I first resided in Muzaffarabad and then in Abbottabad before shifting to Rawalpindi in December 2005-I was eleven years old then. Being one of the bright students of the class, I was regarded by my teachers as someone whose intelligence level was beyond his peers. Nevertheless, when I shifted to Rawalpindi and was enrolled in an elite school which focused on expanding the horizons of the students, I realized that my intellectual capabilities were below par and failed to match my new peers. I gradually assimilated in the new environment and eventually mended myself to ensure I cleared every hurdle with flying colors. However, seven years later, I realized how the moth of inequality and discrimination in education has eaten our society.

Whenever I meet with my childhood friends in the two cities I resided in earlier, I can feel the difference between me and them: the cognition level is significantly different and the intellectual capabilities also vary-in my favor despite all of us being in the same age group and possessing the same level of educational expertise. But the thought that those innocuous friends of mine possessed a lower level of maturity made me feel awkward and uneasy; I realized that they had done nothing that vindicated them having less opportunities and a lower quality education. It was the system that was responsible.

This is only one facet of the problem. The discrimination can be viewed in many ways: those who can’t afford a good quality education are destined to send their children to government schools and those children are doomed to a miserable life because the authorities have shown a cold shoulder to their responsibilities. Similarly, lack of primary schooling in many areas means that the fate of the poor never changes; even those institutes which exist in faraway areas-or even in urban areas-lack quality teachers (because merit is crushed under the feet of the authorities) while the maintenance of the infrastructure is neglected.

It is time we realize that these slum populations, these remote areas and these children who clean the wind screen of our cars on the cross roads may possess the talent or qualities which were endowed to Jinnah, Iqbal-or following more recent examples, Arfa Karim or Ali Moeen Nawazish. They are the future of this nation and they are the path towards the construction of Iqbal’s dream into reality.