July 31, 2007	Tuesday	Rajab 15, 1428

ISLAMABAD, July 30: The Senate committee on education on Monday expressed serious concern over the staggering 40 per cent dropout rate at primary level and asked the Ministry of Education to make necessary arrangements to take the children back to schools.

According to a press release, the committee members who met here at the Parliament House were for adopting innovative strategies to control the declining trends in the education sector at this particular level.

They also called for putting the non-formal education sector in order to achieve the desired results with regard to the promotion and enhancement of literacy in the country.

Presiding over the meeting, Senator Razina Alam Khan said it was the government’s responsibility to work out modalities to curtail such a high dropout rate and to make efforts for bringing those kids back into the formal system by providing them necessary training and education.

She said it was an era of knowledge-based economies and the countries failing in the field of education could not catch up with the developed world.

Talking to Dawn, she said the committee had also asked the education ministry officials to conduct a comprehensive survey to know the reasons behind this significant dropout rate. It is a matter of grave concern that out of those who are enrolled in schools, 40 per cent leave before being promoted to class-V, she said.

On the occasion, Minister of State for Education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli informed the committee members that 1,500 schools would be opened under the Non Formal Basic Education (NFBE) community schools project.

In this regard, she said, there would be an office in each district for the NFBE project to coordinate its activities, adding that these offices would work in collaboration with the district monitoring committees to eliminate ghost schools.

During the meeting, a presentation was also made by National Education Foundation Managing Director Maj-Gen Sabih Qamaruz Zaman on the implementation strategy of the NFBE schools in the country.

He said with the passage of time each successful NFBE institute would be converted into formal school. In future basic education community schools would only be opened in rural and urban slums where formal and non-formal schools are not available, Gen Sabih said.

The committee members also stressed the need for ensuring judicious spending of the money earmarked for the NFBE community schools project. The government has allocated Rs7 billion for the project which will be completed during the next two years.