In the wake of Malala Yousafzai’s powerful speech at the UN about the need for universal education, a new television cartoon premiered in Pakistan featuring a female superhero who fights for just that.
Meet the Burka Avenger! By day, she’s a mild-mannered schoolteacher named Jiya, but when thugs try to shut down her girls’ school, Jiya transforms into a burka-wearing hero who uses her martial arts skills to protect every student’s right to learn.
Brainchild of Pakistani pop star Aaron Haroon Rashid, the sleek cartoon, which is set to premiere in August, is the country’s first. “Each one of our episodes is centered around a moral, which sends out strong social messages to kids,” Rashid told the AP. “But it is cloaked in pure entertainment, laughter, action and adventure.”
The Burka Avenger’s main villains are a corrupt politician and a bearded evil magician who resembles a Taliban commander. Both antagonists are emblematic of real-world forces that keep education from the children of Pakistan.
As the shooting of 15-year-old advocate Malala Yousafzai shows, Taliban Pakistan will go to extraordinary lengths to keep young women from receiving an education. But as Kevin Watkins wrote in The Guardian Tuesday, an even bigger barrier to universal primary education is Pakistan’s own government.
“Pakistan is a case study for the consequences of political neglect of education,” Watkins wrote. “One in four of its primary school-age children–5 million in total–is out of school. Around half of those who get into school drop out before the end of grade 3. Not that getting through school is any guarantee of learning. After three years of primary education, only one-third of children are able correctly to formulate a sentence containing the word ‘school’ or add a two-digit sum.”









