The Poor Little Rich Boy

There was once a clichéd poor little rich boy in the city of Karachi. The poor little rich boy had all the candies in the world.  One can safely say that he was he was raised as a staunch hedonist. Yet the poor little rich boy was forlorn and ignored. Everywhere he went, he was treated as either poor or rich as a little boy.

He was not accepted in his entirety at all, the core of his identity being that he was a paradox of different economic subcultures and familial influences. He delved into the intricacies of business and also into the intricacies of the world of art at the same time. But the poor little rich boy could never comprehend that like him, art and business do not go hand in hand.

So the poor little rich boy wandered around the concrete jungle of Karachi in search of acceptance and love. But the poor little rich boy had one more problem, he could not feel anything. No matter what perils of the world hit him, he thought that by not feeling he would become stronger. This error of perception had turned him into someone akin to a zombie.

While the poor little rich boy was wandering around he stepped into a puddle. The puddle was coming from a dripping pipe of a house of a female banker. The puddle was hazy and his steps had created a gentle ripple in it. When the poor little rich boy stared in the puddle he saw a hazy reflection of a good looking man.

He was awe struck and continued staring at the unfamiliar persona in the murky reflection of the puddle. He continuously stared at it till his mind conjured all sorts of names for the person in the reflection, but he could not find any. The poor little rich boy now still wanders the streets in search of similar puddles, which tease his brain and heart, but eventually dry up. But who is to explain to the poor little rich boy that the search for puddles must also stop for him to reach the next level of consciousness.

Alif Ailaan All Parties Educational Conference on Key Issues of Education in Sindh

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since we have posted on the blog due to the crazy busy wedding season. The team at Pi Studio is in full swing and is working day and night to give you the best content that enhances your thought spectrum.

Yesterday we visited Hyderabad to attend and photograph the All Parties Educational Conference organized the NGO Alif Ailaan. It was conducted in the Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium of the Sindh Museum and was attended by students and notable dignitaries.

We did not know before this conference that how alarming the educational situation is in Sindh. The facts we learnt from the conference, has made us realize that this situation needs immediate work so that the future of the children of Sindh can be secured. The following is a brief listing of the facts in the brochure provided by Alif Ailaan:

-    Half of all children in Sindh are not in school (i.e. 6.1 million children out of 12 million children).

-        More than half (3.4 million or 56%)of the children out of school are girls.

-       The government supply of education is inadequate (47,934 government schools are in Sindh, of which 91% are primary schools and 1% are higher secondary schools).

-   There are too many children dropping out of school (approximately 0.5 million children out of 0.72 million children enrolled in Class 1 drop out by class 6).

-   The attendance is low i.e. 67% compared to other areas in the country whose attendance is about 80%.

-         Learning outcomes are poor i.e.

·        59% of class 5 students cannot read a story fluently in Urdu or Sindhi, 

·        75% of class 5 students cannot read a sentence fluently in English and

·        71% of class 5 students cannot do simple two-digit division.

-   Educational spending is not rationalized i.e. Tharparkar contains 0.8% of the total children in Pakistan but has the largest number of government schools in the country (around  3% of all the government schools).

-     Where schools exist there condition is abysmal. Across Sindh, 77% of government school buildings are in an unsatisfactory condition, according to the Education Department, whereas elsewhere in the country this figure does not exceed 50%. The following are some details:

·      Almost half of all government schools in Sindh are missing the basic facility of a toilet,

·        Three in five government schools in Sindh have no drinking water,

·        One of every three government schools in Sindh is without electricity and

·        Only one in seven government schools in Sindh has a boundary wall.

-      There is a serious problem of ghost schools. According to the recent survey of non-functional and ghost schools by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, there are at least 6,152 non-functional and ghost schools in Sindh. Thus, every 7^th school in Sindh is either a ghost school or non- functional.

Moreover, 3 out of every 4 non-functional or ghost schools in Pakistan are in Sindh / Thatta and Tharparkar have the highest number of non-functional and ghost schools in Pakistan (897 and 858 respectively.)

A famous teacher addresses the conference

The above facts are a slap on all our faces my friends! We all are to blame for this state of education and we all must work to resolve this. Let us all make a pledge that we all will contribute to the betterment of education in our country!

Pakistan Zindabad!

For the pictures please click here