KARACHI, July 14: The Sindh Minister for Education and Literacy, Dr Hameeda Khuhro, was informed on Wednesday that there are 40,121 schools in the province of which 11,229 are without electricity, 8,684 without potable water , 11,082 without toilets and 11,032 schools have no boundary walls.

In addition, 5,624 schools in the province were still closed for want of funds, teachers and other reasons. During a briefing to the minister, Secretary Education Ghulam Ali Pasha told her that enrolment at the primary level was 2.6 million of which 1.6 million were boys and 100,000 girls.

The number of boys schools out of the 40,121 is 33,773 and those for girls only 6,348. The total number of middle schools is 2,373 - 1,672 for boys and 701 for girls. Similarly, 1,297 out of the 1,861 high and higher secondary schools are for boys and 564 for girls, the secretary said.

Mr Pasha further said that literacy rate in the province was 45 per cent. About 64 per cent literates (74 per cent males, 53 per cent females) reside in urban areas, and 32 per cent (50 per cent males, 11 per cent females) in rural areas.

The secretary education apprised the minister that the department planned to make operational 5,624 closed schools. The government had allocated Rs2,231.448 million for education development sector in the budget 2004-05 of which districts would spend Rs1,571.448 million and Rs660 million would be spent by the provincial government. -PPI