Staff Reporter
Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser Wednesday said the government was taking steps to enroll 22 million out of school children. He was speaking at ILM Policy Dialogue, focusing on out of school children at Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Studies (PIPS) here. He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was ahead of other provinces in terms of allocating resources for the education sector. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was spending 28 percent of its budget on education while Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan were making allocations of 19.8 percent, 20 percent and 17 percent respectively, he told. “We have to increase the education budget.
The provinces will have to allocate at least 30 percent of their budgets for education for progress of Pakistan, eradication of poverty and human development.” He stressed that uniform curriculum should be ensured and in this connection consultation should be done with all stakeholders. He expressed his dissatisfaction at the present state of education in the country.
He quoted Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah as saying that education was a matter of life and death for Pakistan. He said the world was making rapid progress and without progress in the field of knowledge, development of a country was not possible. He said the federal and provincial governments and international organizations should arrange for attractive scholarships and incentives to encourage girls to get education. “We have to focus on adult literacy and we have to encourage students to undertake social service.”
He suggested that an “education army” comprising volunteers should be created to achieve the target of 100 percent literacy. He said public representatives should play their role for achieving success in the mission of educating the society. The speaker said Pakistan was determined to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adding the SDGs call for creating lifelong opportunities to learn.
The government enrolled one million children in schools in a year by initiating different steps, he added. He said the enrollment in primary schools rose by 4.4 percent, at secondary level by 6.6 percent, and by 8.7 percent in the technical education sector.
