KHYBER Pakhtunkhwa Government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has achieved a major milestone in the education sector regarding bringing out-of-school children to the educational institutions which in fact is an example for other federating units to follow.
Adviser to Provincial Chief Minister on Education Ziaullah Bangash told the KP Assembly the other day that over one million out-of-school children have been enrolled in the province. He said efforts are afoot to enrol 1.6 million out-of-school children by the end of this year. Indeed this is a major accomplishment and one expects the enrolment campaign will be further accelerated in order to achieve the desired target. This problem of out-of-school children is not confined to KP but is a countrywide problem. The reason behind indeed is poverty and lack of educational institutions. Last year in November, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had said in a report that nearly 22.5 million of Pakistan’s children are out of school with the majority of them girls. The same report concluded that many children have no access to education because of shortage of government schools, especially for girls. The report further stated said thirty-two per cent of primary school age girls were out of school in Pakistan, compared with 21 per cent of boys as by ninth grade, only 13 per cent of girls were in school. These indeed are alarming figures and a challenging task to deal with. Firstly, there is need to construct necessary education infrastructure equipped with latest facilities and then steps such as providing incentives to the poor families to send their children to schools will go a long way in checking dropout rates. Then those not willing to get formal education, alternative learning programmes be framed offering adolescents a pathway to develop the employability skills they need to access decent employment. Quality education to all is also one of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and by achieving it the country can easily meet many other goals such as poverty eradication, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities and gender equality.
