President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday termed as ‘alarming’ the country’s 22.8 million children not attending schools and said the challenge needed broad-based efforts, both at the government and individual levels. He said the serious situation meant half of the child population aged five to 16 was at risk of engaging in labour or begging. Addressing a seminar on out-of-school children in Pakistan, the president said education was the right of every child guaranteed by the religion and the country’s constitution. The seminar organized by the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS) and Pakistan Teachers Forum (PTF) discussed the issues and way forward to address the challenge of out-of-school children. President Alvi pointed out that with only 68 percent of children in the category of primary education, the country lagged far behind the other South Asian nations including 100 percent in India, 99 percent in Sri Lanka and 98 percent in Bangladesh. He stressed that it was the collective responsibility of the government, legislators, elite, civil society and the general public to take steps at their ends for the promotion of education. He said Pakistan could achieve remarkable development by laying specific focus on education and health. In this regard, he called for setting priorities and taking effective decisions on the policies relating to matters of public interest. Dr Alvi said incentives such as school feeding programmes for students and disbursement of cash to the parents on their children’s attendance could encourage the underprivileged population to get education. He expressed confidence that the bright young minds could bring laurels to the country if provided a level-playing field in areas, particularly education and health. The president stressed equal opportunities for girls and women to acquire education at par with their male counterparts. Federal Secretary for Federal Education and Professional Training Amir Ashraf Khawaja said the economy had a significant link with education and pointed out that lack of investment in education, health and agriculture resulted in a big lag in development for the country. He said the federal government was striving to address the challenge of imparting education to out-of-school children through incentives such as school feeding programmes. On tele-learning, he said, four channels were being launched through Allama Iqbal Open University besides a mobile application for accelerated learning. Chairperson PTF Senator Fauzia Arshad, also an educationist, said the unfortunate challenge of 22.8 million out-of-school children that constituted 44 percent of the child population aged 5-16 years was not only an educational crisis but also a violation of human rights. She emphasized the measures including inclusive education, learning programmes and persuading parents to send their children to schools. In a span of three years, she said, the PTF as a social welfare organization of education professionals had entered into various accords of collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industries. Executive Director PIPS Muhammad Anwar said the institute established in 2008 focused on the orientation of legislators and training of parliamentary officers. He mentioned that besides training of national and provincial assemblies, the launch of international courses was also on the cards.