The private schools census 2023, launched by Sindh Government, revealed that over 3.9 students are studying in private schools across the province.
Over 1.8 million girls and 2.1 million boys are enrolled in 11736 private schools which are also source of employment for 298,938 teaching and non-teaching staff, the census data shows.
Sindh Education and Culture Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah unveiled the Private School Census Sindh 2023 at the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi in the presence of Secretary School Education Ghulam Akbar Laghari, Special Secretary Ghulam Ali Birhmani, other senior officials, representatives of Private School Association, educational experts and teachers.
Syed Sardar Shah addressing the ceremony said that data collection of private schools was started from April 2022 for the first-ever census of private schools in Sindh.
During the survey visits to 12809 private schools were carried out and of them, 11736 private schools were found active while 1073 schools were inactive. According to the census, there were 1247 primary, 553 middle, 2784 elementary, 6546 secondary, 606 higher secondary and A-O level private educational institutions functioning in the province.
A number of English medium schools in Sindh was recorded at 10776 while there were 469 Urdu and 491 Sindhi medium private schools in the province, the census data shows.
The education minister while stressing the need for a data mechanism and accurate data for identification of issues and formulation of right policies said that all the discussions about education were earlier based on assumptions and estimates in the absence of authentic data and false impressions continued to flourish. Publication of the census report helped us to know the correct data regarding schools and now we will be able to accurately estimate the number of out-of-school children in Sindh based on the census and the next step will be to work on the return of those children to schools, he vowed.
