It is no secret that the quality of education in Pakistan is not the best, to say the least. Instead of working to advance the education system, we seem to be going backwards. The Single National Curriculum, for example, highlights the role of women as always being “a great support for men.” Why is the government taking our education further into the past? By law, young girls will learn that their primary role as a woman is to support men. The boys will learn that they have some sort of superiority over women.

Pakistan has one of the poorest education systems in the world. In 2020, it ranked 154^th on the HDI Index, showcasing just how poor the standards of living were. Education can make or break the economy. From an educated youth emerges a skilled workforce, high in demand and paid well. Productivity is high and the economy flourishes. The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE)’s recent diktat that teachers shall not wear jeans and shirts is further proof that the government is prioritising parts of the education system that have nothing to do with education.

Are teachers’ clothing choices really the most pressing matter when it comes to education? There’s an infinite number of other problems that government schools have to tackle on a daily basis. There is a serious lack of qualifications among their teachers, for instance.

Some may argue that enforcing a dress code is an efficient way to ensure that teachers look smart and formal. This may be true, but are teachers’ clothing choices really the most pressing matter when it comes to education? There is an infinite number of other problems that government schools have to tackle on a daily basis. Thousands of schools lack access to proper infrastructure, clean water and toilets, which are fundamental human needs. Further, there is a serious lack of qualifications among teachers.

Another crucial matter is that a majority of public schools in Pakistan are primary schools. This means that after primary school, students have little opportunity to continue their education. Yet, the government has chosen to address how the teachers dress up, which is barely even an issue in the first place. It could have passed laws that granted pupils their basic rights, or invested in a syllabus that did not reinforce the misogyny we have tried so hard to erase, or even supplied training courses for teachers. Instead, it decided to focus on how teachers dress.

It is perplexing to me that teachers’ clothes are even on the government’s agenda. At the very least, this ‘problem’ needed to be right at the bottom of the list. There are countless more important issues in the education sector. If we continue to move in this direction, instead of progressing and catching up with the rest of the world, we will be left behind.

Without serious educational reforms that grant the poor access to schools, nothing is going to get better.

The writer is a student based in Lahore