New guidelines ban music, phones and social media sharing as province grapples with education crisis
Strict new standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been issued for girls’ colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K‑P).
According to the SOPs, it is mandatory to obtain permission from the Director of Higher Education before organizing any type of function.
Music, dancing, modeling or any similar type of performance was completely prohibited under the new guidelines, as was the use of cell phones during office hours and university events.
Additionally, all students must wear their uniform when attending an event, with videos or photos of events not to be shared on social media.
Read: Is girls’ education still a dream in KP?
These measures come against the backdrop of a prolonged educational crisis in the province, which was grappling with inequalities in access to school long before the directives.
Even before the 2025 floods, in many districts, girls regularly dropped out of school after elementary grades due to cultural norms, lack of nearby institutions, and weak educational infrastructure, making sustainable education for girls “still a dream” in some parts of K‑P, especially in remote areas like Upper Kohistan and Dabir, where families struggle to send their daughters to school.
The situation was further exacerbated by the devastating floods of August 2025. According to official data at the time, nearly 4.9 million children in K‑P were out of school, including around 2.9 million girls, with flood damage to hundreds of schools keeping many students out of classrooms.
Learn more: Floods deepen girls’ education crisis
Flood-related destruction was widespread, damaging or destroying learning environments that already lacked basic facilities such as perimeter walls, sanitation and clean water, factors that disproportionately affect girls’ continued education.
Education activists and observers have repeatedly warned that the cumulative effects of natural disasters and long-standing systemic challenges, including inadequate facilities and cultural barriers, have widened the gender gap in education.
They insisted that reconstruction of damaged school buildings and gender-sensitive policies must go hand in hand with efforts to keep girls in educational institutions.
