International Day of the Girl Child – Workshop at Federal College of Education

In order to advocate for the rights of the Girl Child in the light of the SDGs, ITA held a workshop with at the Federal College of Education where it met with the educators of tomorrow and impressed on them the need to make provisions for the 2030 deadline. The event was attended by 42 FCE students – 37female participants and 5 male participants.Dr. Jamil Bajwa opened the session for his students and addressed the need for continued efforts in order to meet the SDGs, due to the great failure to meet the 2000-2015 MDG targets. ITA Director Marketing Waqas Bajwa reiterated this point and passed the baton to Zarnab Yousaf and Shafaq Malik of ITA who carried the discussion forward, noting the importance of SDG 4 which states that by 2030 states must “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning”.

With SDG 4 as the primary focus, ITA presented on the current state of education and enrollment in Pakistan, highlighting girls in particular. While discussing the potential reasons for low female enrollment, the team observed the great role income plays in ensuring sustained enrollment and decreasing drop-out rates. In order to further highlight the urgency and importance of 12 years of education for girls, the students were familiarized with all 17 SDGs and the role SDG 4 plays in achieving all other SDGs. Girls education, in particular, allows for the sustained education of an entire household as in most Pakistani households, women make resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, stress on female education would lead to a more educated electorate, who would be aware of their basic human rights and would be able to make informed decisions in the democratic process.

After the conclusion of the presentation the students were shown the documentary “He Named Me Malala”, to advocate for the right to education of every child, and to highlight the role education plays in championing human rights. The students were asked to fill out forms completing the sentence “Girls should go to school because…..” while watching the documentary, to allow ITA real time insight into the effectiveness of the workshop.

Director FCE Dr. Imtiaz Khan gave the concluding remarks at the end of the workshop and noted the importance of our future educators to be cognizant of the requirements of the SDGs in order to be able to fully meet the targets by 2030. He further highlighted that the implementation of Article 25 (a) falls not only within the scope of governance and human rights, but also religion in order to provide equal opportunity to all citizens of a country through education.