March 27, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 7, 1428

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KARACHI, March 26: Pakistan will be among 26 countries which may fail to meet even a single target of ‘Education for All’ programme by 2015, says a research report. The report titled ‘EFA: A Critical Review of Polices, Implementation and Quality of Education’ was launched by the Sindh Education Foundation on Monday.Speakers criticised the government for what they called its incompetence in implementing the EFA programme in Sindh.

It may be mentioned that Pakistan is a signatory to the EFA framework incorporated in the World Education Forum which calls for meeting EFA goals by 2015.

According to the report, out of total 45,000 schools in Sindh, there are 7,734 for girls, 19,917 for boys and 16,987 are co-education.

It said as many as 4.2 million girls out of total of 6.5 million in the country do not go to schools.

The Sindh government at present is operating 711 non-formal schools for working children and the number of learners enrolled in schools is 39,651 of which 48.73 per cent are boys and 51.27 per cent girls.

Criticising the way of implementing the EFA programme, Prof Anita Ghulam Ali of the SEF said that the EFA had been merely reduced to ‘Literacy for All’.

Mr Aziz Kabani of the SEF said that in a literacy test of grade four and five more than fifty per cent students failed to demonstrate proficiency in literacy and numeric skills that were normally expected from children in grades one and two.

Mr Kabani said that the need of the hour was to focus on the quality of education instead of merely increasing the rate of literacy.

Sindh Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro said there were millions of children who had been deprived of education and the government was making efforts to meet the goal of Education for All programme.

The minister said that many independent research studies and reviews of Unesco suggested progress in basic education and significant steps had been taken towards achieving the EFA goal.

Dr Khuhro said that primary enrolment in Sindh had been steadily growing since 1990.

She said that there were about 45,000 primary schools in the province and education budget had been raised from Rs2 billion to Rs12 billion.

The minister said that spending on education would be raised from two to four per cent of GDP in the next two years.

“Each district of the province is given Rs100 million to upgrade, modernise and standardise school structure,” she claimed.

Dr Khuhro said that if education was made socially and culturally relevant then it could become single most effective vehicle to achieve democracy, peace, sustainable development and above all justice.

Najma Sadique, Haris Gazdar, Mohammad Ali Memon, Ichrio Miyazawa of Unesco-Pakistan and Prof Abbas Hussain also spoke on the occasion.