Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has emerged as the country where live around one-third of South Asian children who are out of schools, revealed a report issued by the UNICEF.

According to the report, the ratio of out-of-school girls was higher then the boys. The report states that 38.9 percent of girls at the primary level are not enrolled in schools, while 30.2 percent of the boys are out of schools.

Questioning newly provided data after the recent enrolment drives, which decreased the number of primary level out-of-school children to 6.16 million in 2013-2014, the report states that this information was not concrete, as it did not show whether the children are still getting education. It also showed concern over the quality of education in the country.

Girl students were the prime focus of the report, according to which only 14 percent of the girls in poorest localities can read a story in Urdu, Sindhi or Pashto, as compared to 22 percent of the boys in the same areas.

The report also highlighted many reasons for this inadequate quality of education, which include lack of infrastructure, lack of teaching material and unavailability of teachers’ training and assessment systems.

The UNICEF revealed in the report that access to education (in Pakistan) is extremely inequitable. Only 20 percent of the girls from poor rural households are in schools, as compared to 81 percent of those from rich urban households, according to the report. It said that girls from the poor rural areas receive only one year of education (on average).

According to the agency, through the Every Child in School Initiative (ECSI), about 762,000 children have so far been enrolled in primary schools in 50 focus districts across the country. Of them, only 211,000 are girls. It states that 31 districts in Balochistan and 29 districts in Sindh were the main focus areas of this strategy.

To help improve the quality and monitoring of schools under the plan, more than 10,500 staff members, including teachers, head teachers and education managers, have been trained for the purpose of classroom management, disaster risk reduction, child friendly approaches, and early childhood education, according to the human rights agency.

In 2015, UNICEF supported education for 52,800 displaced children (including 20,000 girls) through temporary learning centres in host communities, areas of return and in camps.