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Exposure to industrialization, urbanization, and commercial activities in the past 45 years has improved attitudes towards women in Pakistan, but they are still considered subordinate to men and the property of parents or husband. Traditional social values do not allow women full integration and participation in social and economic activities. Seclusion of women, dictated by religion, is a main reason why females are less educated. Socioeconomic, cultural, and social practices cause various types of communication gaps that hinder education in general, and women's education in particular: communication gaps between teacher and students, between parents and students, between genders, and between traditional and nontraditional environments. After a discussion of each of these, various goals of education are identified and explained: cultural, social, individual, and international. Suggestions for achieving these goals include reshaping the education system to respond to rapidly changing socioeconomic and cultural demands; providing equal education and job opportunities for women; training students to develop a new integrated society through ideological and social uplift programs; emphasizing science and vocational education; reducing the number of students in class; implementing teacher refresher courses; providing financial assistance; improving the status of women; and utilizing distance education. (TD)

Rural poverty in Sindh, Pakistan, has been artificially created by low prices of wheat, fixed by the federal government's price control board. Agriculture and agro-based industries account for 80 percent of the country's labor force. Among the consequences of this price control are low margins of profit to the farming community; low capacity to adequately develop farm land; low wages to farmers; and malnutrition in farm families, resulting in mental retardation and low I.Q. in children. Prices are controlled to provide cheap labor to industry. Other factors that contribute to poverty in Sindh are: loans against rural property are allowed at 10 percent of property value, compared to 75 percent for urban property; feudalist remnants in society discourage education among the masses to keep them poor and ignorant; and rural property owners lost their land to money lenders during the post-World War I depression. Poverty has affected family attitudes, economic conditions of the family, and the intellectual level of parents, all of which have affected the education of children. The education system needs to be reshaped to meet new social demands and should emphasize primary education, formal and technical education, adult literacy programs, equal education, and vocational education. A table shows the real value of 50 kg of wheat in terms of 1950 prices, for the years 1950-87. (TD)

In rural Pakistan, agricultural land is owned by men and they use family labor, including women. Women usually transact no cash from cradle to grave. There is no social support for high achievement in their lives. The illiteracy rate among women is very high, especially in rural areas, where only 7.3 percent of women are literate. Poor underachieving women with only basic education show poor linguistic ability, feelings of rejection, emotional insecurity, poor motivation, and difficulty in adjustment and absorption in society. Some studies report girls have a higher level of achievement motivation than boys but lack opportunities. Sindh Rural Women's Uplift Group engaged 10-15 women on a farm, paid them the same salaries as men, and gave them similar jobs to perform. After 2 years, results show that the women's output exceeded the men's, and the life pattern of the women has changed. Initially, men took their salaries, but the women asserted themselves and are now better clothed and want to send their children to school. The men are becoming more considerate. The educational system needs to be reshaped to respond to rapidly changing socioeconomic and cultural demands, with emphasis on equal education, remedial education, and vocational education. Distance education is a useful way to address the facts that women are kept in seclusion within the boundary walls of the home, coeducation is not allowed, educational facilities are limited in rural areas, and free time is limited. (TD)

The education of females is one of the best investments that a country can make in its future, because it enables the country to draw more fully on all of its human resources for national development. In 1981, 26.2% of the population of Pakistan above the age of 10 was literate. The literacy rate was 35.1% for males compared to 16% for females, and ranged from a high of 53.3% for urban men to a low of 7.3% for rural women. The female school enrollment drops sharply after the primary level, and then again after the secondary level. The student dropout rate is linked to the social, cultural, economic, and educational background of the parents. Disparities in educational attainment correspond to other social inequities between urban and rural populations and between men and women. Many rural people want to continue their daughters' education, but it is socially unacceptable for girls to leave their homes for education. Girls are also excluded from apprenticeships in commercial shops, through which boys learn a trade. However, social attitudes are changing, in that educated young men want to marry educated women. Rapid expansion and revitalization of the education system is needed. Improvements are needed in training, planning, management, and promotion of innovation to enable the entire education system to respond to rapidly changing socioeconomic and cultural demands. Other suggestions for improvement include increasing literacy education and job training for women; distributing educational videotape cassettes through the existing commercial video rental infrastructure; increasing computer uses in education; and focusing the educational system on vocational education, especially for females. (TD)