|
|
|
| April 9, 2003 | Wednesday | Safar 6, 1424 |
Govt urged to make primary education compulsory
PESHAWAR, April 8: The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) urged the government to make primary education compulsory for all children of school going age in the country, including the girls.
This was stated by SPARC’s Deputy National Coordinator Arshad Mahmood, while speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Tuesday on the eve of the Global Action Week, 2003, which is being observed in more than 100 countries, including Pakistan, through out the world, under the Global Campaign for Education. The Programme Coordinator, Shaista Tariq, was also present.
The week being coordinated by SPARC in Pakistan is being observed from April 6 to 13 with a motto of “Hands up for Girls’ Education.”
On April 9, children and adults from all over the world will be attempting to break the world record for the largest simultaneous lesson, to create awareness and remind the governments of their commitments regarding the children, Mr Mahmood said.
Around the world, he said, there were over 100 million children out of schools and 862 million illiterate adults, majority of them were girls and women, adding that there were more than 70 million illiterate adults in Pakistan, around 70 percent of them being women, and above 4 million girls of the school going age were not going to schools, he said.
In the year 2001-02, only 49 per cent boys and 27 per cent girls completed their primary education in the country and in such a situation the country was spending only 2.2 per cent of its GDP on education, he added.
This was despite the fact that Pakistan was a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which came into force for Pakistan in 1990 and declared education a basic right of every child, he added.
Mr Mahmood said that at the World Education Forum held in Dakar, 180 governments, UNESCO, and the World Bank had committed to achieve universal coverage of free primary education by 2015, as well as gender equity in education by 2005, but he expressed his fear that Pakistan would miss the target of achieving gender equity in education.
“Pakistan had not even drawn up a plan for putting the Dakar commitments into action,” he said, adding it was high time that on the federal and provincial level, a plan of action for achieving education for all be drawn up.
He urged the provincial government to immediately make rules for the effective implementation of the NWFP Compulsory Primary Education Act, 1996.—APP
|
|
|
|
