May 18, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1423

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SWABI, May 17: Over one million people all over the globe do not have access to education, resulting in the deterioration of various societies, specially in the developing countries.

This was stated at a seminar organized by the Society for the Protection of Rights of Children with the collaboration of Samajee Behbood Rabita Council (SBRC) which was attended by human right activists, NGO members and people of the district.

Expressing his views, a human right activist Mohammad Arshad said that majority of masses in the developing countries had not been provided with adequate education facilities, leading to production of army of uneducated youth.

He said these uneducated children when grew up had not only become a burden for their economically weak families but some of them were also got involved in crimes.

Without providing education to the young people none of the states could achieve a peaceful environment, economic progress and political stability, he claimed.

President of SBRC Rohal Amin said that the Punjab Compulsory Primary Education Act, 1994, the NWFP Compulsory Primary Education Act, 1996, and the lslamabad Capital Territory Compulsory Education Ordinance, 2000, should be upheld by the federal and provincial education ministries, while in the NWFP and Balochistan there was a need to pay more attention to the education sector.

He said both Balochistan and NWFP were falling behind in the education field and there were no proper focus on imparting education to the youngsters despite the fact that without improving the standard of education the dream of economic progress and political stability could not be materialized.

Another human rights activist Syed Mubashir said there were 78 million illiterate people in Pakistan. “When people in a such a large number are uneducated how could the country achieve progress,” he asked.

Other speakers also stressed that the government should increase education budget so that adequate facilities could be provided to the masses.