Columban Fr Robert McCulloch with Maheer Shalal Hashbaz when he was in Grade 8 at St Bonaventure High School, Issa Nagri. - Photo: Fr Robert McCulloch
Everyone in Pakistan says that “education is the key” for young people to escape from poverty and for the country to develop. This is a comforting platitude for the “everyone” who sit in offices and plan but the reality is different in the slum areas of the big cities in Pakistan where people worry about surviving on meagre incomes.
Pakistan spends only 0.8% of GDP on education. International aid to Pakistan makes education a priority but how does this explain that only 27% of children complete high school and that the national literacy rate is only 60.6%. Another educational planning platitude is that “education of girls has to be the priority” but how does this take into account the fact that in the Catholic community in Pakistan there is a higher percentage of girls being educated while their brothers are illiterate or have only been to school for a few years.
Since the late 1970s there has been a huge social change among Pakistani Catholics. Tens of thousands of families left the Punjab where they were working as agricultural labourers and moved to the south of the country hoping to get land in the desert areas in the Sindh province where irrigation canals connected to the Indus River were being built. But most ended up in the big cities of Karachi and Hyderabad as menial labourers or street sweepers.
For some, however, leaving the Punjab and moving to the south of Pakistan was successful. The positive results of the tough decision made by grandparents and parents to pull up roots and move can be seen in their children. A good example is Eric Siraj who is the administrator of St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad. In 1975 his parents left the Punjab. They were able to get some good land and build a small family home in a nearby town. They were totally illiterate but they realized that moving brought new opportunities for their children. They made sure that all of them went to school, stayed in school, and continued into higher education. Eric’s parents have the contentment that their children and grandchildren have moved up and beyond from being illiterate and impoverished farm labourers as they were 50 years ago as a newly-married couple in the Punjab.
Eric Siraj, administrator (fourth from the left), Columban Fr Robert McCulloch (right) amongst the staff at St Elizabeth's Hospital in Pakistan - Photo: Fr Robert McCulloch
This is the success story of some. Many others have not been as fortunate and this very often has been due to bad family decisions. Religious discrimination against Christians which is an entrenched and inescapable reality in Pakistan is a major issue but it is not the full story and is often used as the excuse. The situation of more than 400 Christian families living in Issa Nagri, a slum area Hyderabad, is a typical place to see this.
Issa Nagri is in the cathedral parish in Hyderabad. I took on pastoral care of Issa Nagri in 2001 at the same time as lecturing at the National Catholic Institute of Theology in Karachi and being its academic dean and having administrative responsibilities at St Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad.
Although Hyderabad is nearly 200kms from Karachi, I managed to be in Issa Nagri on Tuesday evenings and the weekends. There was already a church there and a Catholic school owned and managed by the Diocesan Board of Education.
Few Catholic children were in the school. Most pupils were Muslim. The social and economic situation of the Christians in Issa Nagri was pathetic. Poorly-built houses which reflected the poverty of the people, no sewerage or made roads or drains, intermittent electricity supply, alcohol abuse, proliferation of drugs, family instability and broken marriages. The after-work occupation of many of the men was gambling. It was a disaster environment for getting Catholic children to go to school or to remain in school. Little parental interest, no encouragement for the children, and an unreadiness or inability to pay the very low monthly school fees.
I felt that it was like a barren gravel pit; but ten years ago, it seemed that gold nuggets began to shine in the gravel. And this started what is now like an educational gold rush in Issa Nagri.
This is the result of hopes and planning and the generosity of donors coming together. Flickers of family stability among Catholics emerged from the darkness; a new dedicated principal was appointed to the Catholic school; in 2007 I began the Catholic Centre of Academic Excellence CCAE which enables Catholic boys in high school to overcome the barriers of religious discrimination through academic achievement and to obtain university admission on merit; and generous donors were ready to help. The previous desperate situation in Issa Nagri for Catholic children has been changed into one of achievement and hope. As is the case of Maheer Shalal Hashbaz.
Students from the Catholic Centre of Academic Excellence (CCAE). - Photo: Fr Robert McCulloch
Maheer is 19 years old, and is the eldest of four children. His parents are solid Catholics. When he was in Grade 6 it seemed that his family financial situation meant he would have to leave school. Columban donors in Australia came to the rescue and began to support Maheer and eight other children in Issa Nagri.
From 2019-2023, after his school hours, Maheer attended the Catholic Centre of Academic Excellence which is totally supported by generous donors. He was awarded the Founder’s Scholarship at CCAE in 2023 as the outstanding student in his graduating class. And he obtained admission on merit to the University of Sindh in 2023 where he is doing BSc in Physics.
Like Maheer, many other Catholic boys in Issa Nagri are becoming young confident Catholic high achievers. What was a gravel pit of desperation has now become a seam of gold of achievement.
Columban Fr Robert McCulloch worked in Pakistan for 34 years, and currently lives in Rome.
Listen to "Gold in the gravel"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - July 2025
