PESHAWAR: NWFP lagging behind in education: experts: 2.14m children not enrolled in schools
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, April 25: Child rights activists said on Tuesday that the provincial government had fallen behind in its target of providing education to every child of school-going age and removing gender disparities in the education sector.
Speaking at a seminar held here in connection with ‘Global Education Week’, the rights activists said the situation of education had become increasingly dismal in the province and noted that at least 2.14 million children were not attending schools.
The speakers at the seminar called upon the provincial government to implement the compulsory Primary Education Act 1996 in the province.
They said that although the government had set a target of providing education to every child of school going age by the year 2015, current enrolment figures in the Frontier province were dismal.
Jehanzeb Khan, senior programme manager of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) which is celebrating Global Education Week (April 24-30), said that sessions would be held for the awareness about education of children during this week. Global Education Week is being celebrated in some 60 districts of Pakistan. The theme of this year’s week is “every child needs a teacher”.
“The government has not fulfilled its commitments and a large number of children are still not enrolled in school,” Mr Khan said.
According to the 1998 census, the population of NWFP is around 18 million and some 50 per cent of the population consists of male and female children. While some 2.35 million children are enrolled in schools there are 2.14 million children who are not attending schools due to various reasons.
The number of teachers instructing these children is 63,507. Some 34 per cent are female teachers and 66 per cent of teachers are male in the province. The total number of primary schools currently stands at 22,024. Of these 7,490 are girls’ schools and 14,534 primary schools are for boys.
Mr Khan said that these figures showed that NWFP government was very far from achieving its target of ‘education for all’.
The NWFP government should open some 20,000 schools for children who aren’t attending school and appoint some 57,869 teachers to teach these children.
The participants including civil society representatives urged the NWFP government to hire trained and highly educated teachers, and provide them good salaries. They proposed that the contract policy for hiring teachers be abolished to provide professional and financial security to teachers.
Maryam Bibi, a social activist who is running schools in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said the government should provide security to teachers and students and encourage women’s education.
“It is the responsibility of the government to ensure quality education for all but the situation is pathetic in the NWFP and tribal areas,” said Ms Maryam.
“The government is not willing to do anything for poor families who cannot afford to send their children to school,” she said.
Government officials, including the deputy secretary for higher education, Ghulam Rehmani and deputy secretary for schools and literacy Mazher Jan, said it was the responsibility of the society as a whole and not only the government to provide education to children.
He said that it was the responsibility of parents to send their children to school.
