Female Continue to Face Challenges in Acquiring Higher Education in Pakistan

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the challenges, which girls had to face to overcome the cultural obstructions in getting higher education. The study focused on a multitude of cultural barriers and challenges, financial problems, and academic issues that female had to face. Qualitative, as well as a quantitative research approach, was used to know about the experience of respondents which they experienced while getting admission in the university. Questioners were the essential tools to collect the data described by a percentage basis. The study was conducted in Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan (Punjab, Pakistan) because different rural areas surrounded it. The population of the present study consisted of the female students studying in BS (Hons) program and M.sc students of the university. The paper argues that financial constraints included the theme of the scarcity of resources allocated to girls. Due to poor economic conditions, parents preferred their son’s education as compared to the daughter’s school and suggested that due to limited resources, parents choose between daughter’s education and son’s education. “From these excerpts, it was also revealed that families did not invest in girl’s education due to their restricted productivity in generating income for the family. The results also show that various factors are responsible for the social exclusion of girls from the education sector of Pakistan. These factors include the conservative attitude of family and preference to boy’s education. The originality of this paper is that the conservative opinion of the family and community is the primary determinant of low enrollment rate of girls in higher education. In addition to this, the result of the research depicts that little parental education also results in a flat enrollment rate in Pakistan.