The turboprop touched down very smoothly at 9:00pm on Tuesday, the crew welcomed us to Sukkur and announced it was 32C and as the rear door opened the hot air consumed the canned cool air – if I’d known that was the last cool air I would inhale for a while I would have breathed more deeply.
One of the most volatile issues in Pakistan at the moment that is causing protests and riots is the power load shedding. With inadequate power for the ever increasing demand, it has been ‘normal’ during summer, for the power grid to be shut down for an average of 2-3 hours per day. But this year some places are being shut down for between 10-15 hours – Sukkur is one of them. It’s okay for those that can afford generators and the fuel to run them, but for the majority of people – on a 40C+ day – it is becoming intolerable, and they are letting the government know about it – so the government has set up a committee to discuss it!
I have spent the past two days travelling around Sukkur looking at single and two room schools that are part of the Education program: My Teacher, My Role Model. Designed to make learning a “joyous experience” the program seeks to up skill teachers, eradicate corporal punishment, advocate for the implementation of education policy and in some cases (where necessary) refurbish schools to make them places where both students and teachers want to be.
Arriving at the Central Primary school this morning I was greeted by the Assistant District Officer (Education) and two snake charmers. This school, like the rest I visited, is (mostly) a happy place despite the fact that due to power load shedding most schools are without any electricity: in a concrete classroom, on a 40C+ day – it is hot, stinking hot! But the achievements are clearly evident, here like everywhere else, kids want to learn, and parents want them to. Little girls speak of their hope to be doctors, teachers and judges; little boys announce that they will be soldiers, presidents and policemen.
Driving around Sukkur makes me wonder if I have landed in some bizarre movie. It’s like being in a giant sandpit with mud and brick, grey/brown buildings. Camel and donkey carts vie for right of way with ornately (gaudily) decorated and dangerously overloaded trucks and motorbikes, on roads where dodgem seems appropriate to describe the rules. In contrast to the sand and beige an overload of colours worn by women splashes around the peripherals.
Just outside the city acres of land are lined with date palms loaded with fruit, but then with the blink of the eye they’re gone and the landscape is replaced by sand dunes topped by an ancient fort, an ornate mosque, or a quarry.
“This is real Pakistan” says my host, “the real people live here, they are poor, they are forgotten and they are hungry – not just for food, but for education, because they know the only way to change Pakistan is to educate their children.”
One of the most volatile issues in Pakistan at the moment that is causing protests and riots is the power load shedding. With inadequate power for the ever increasing demand, it has been ‘normal’ during summer, for the power grid to be shut down for an average of 2-3 hours per day. But this year some places are being shut down for between 10-15 hours – Sukkur is one of them. It’s okay for those that can afford generators and the fuel to run them, but for the majority of people – on a 40C+ day – it is becoming intolerable, and they are letting the government know about it – so the government has set up a committee to discuss it!
I have spent the past two days travelling around Sukkur looking at single and two room schools that are part of the Education program: My Teacher, My Role Model. Designed to make learning a “joyous experience” the program seeks to up skill teachers, eradicate corporal punishment, advocate for the implementation of education policy and in some cases (where necessary) refurbish schools to make them places where both students and teachers want to be.
One of the main issues for these rural schools, particularly for girls, is the lack of washroom facilities, in the past parents have kept their children home. But in these two days I have heard stories of parents and teachers who, having learned of the policies, are going to education officials and insisting on the facilities that are mandated by policy to be provided, and government officials are responding. It’s a longer story, and a little more complicated: but the result, after only 5 months, is that in most of the schools where these initiatives have been implemented student attendance has increased on average 20% and teachers are enthusiastic.
Driving around Sukkur makes me wonder if I have landed in some bizarre movie. It’s like being in a giant sandpit with mud and brick, grey/brown buildings. Camel and donkey carts vie for right of way with ornately (gaudily) decorated and dangerously overloaded trucks and motorbikes, on roads where dodgem seems appropriate to describe the rules. In contrast to the sand and beige an overload of colours worn by women splashes around the peripherals.
Just outside the city acres of land are lined with date palms loaded with fruit, but then with the blink of the eye they’re gone and the landscape is replaced by sand dunes topped by an ancient fort, an ornate mosque, or a quarry.
“This is real Pakistan” says my host, “the real people live here, they are poor, they are forgotten and they are hungry – not just for food, but for education, because they know the only way to change Pakistan is to educate their children.”
