PESHAWAR: Speakers at a dialogue on the legislation of Article 25-A, which gives the right to education to every child, have urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to rebuild the blown up buildings of educational institutions and take urgent steps for early enrolment of the 2.5 million out-of-school children in the province.

The event was organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) in collaboration with ActionAid at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday. It was stated that in rest of the provinces the governments had worked on implementation of the right to education law – Article 25-A – but in KP the situation was disappointing though the government had declared education emergency.

Prominent among the speakers were MPA Syed Jaffar Shah, chairman standing committee of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Labour, former education minister MPA Ms Meraj Humayun, Noor Alam Khan advocate, Jehanzeb Khan of Sparc, Ms Alia Rasheed of ActionAid and Ibrash Pasha of Khwendo Kor.

Dialogue held on legislation of Article 25-A

Speaking on the occasion, Jaffar Shah said that majority of the lawmakers in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly did not know about the compulsory education policy otherwise there was no dearth of funds and resources for the purpose.

He said that the out-of-school children could easily be enrolled but they needed enthusiasm on part of the rulers to run double shifts both for boy and girl students.

He said that it was also the duty of the civil society organisations, media and lawmakers to play combined role for increasing literacy rate. He said that the nomads were hitherto neglected section of the society who did not have the computerised national identity cards and could not expect to be enrolled in the schools though they had a vast population across the country. He said that he would raise the issue in the assembly.

Meraj Humayun said that the previous provincial government had prepared a draft bill for approval of the Article 25-A, but it did not materialise the plan. She said that the present government had declared education emergency, but did not construct even a single school building in the province. She said that the government also failed to reconstruct the buildings damaged or destroyed in bomb blasts. She said that the province required about 12,000 new school buildings to enrol the children, adding that before provision of the requirements there would be no use of the implementation of Article 25-A.

Criticising the provincial government, the lawmaker said that it should overhaul the existing system of education instead of making fresh recruitment for monitoring of schools.

Lawyer Noor Alam Khan said that it was duty of the state to provide quality education to all the children on equal basis. He said that if the government did not implement the law of compulsory education it would be a violation of the Constitution.

Ibrash Pasha said that the federal government had approved the compulsory education law in 2012 and the Punjab government in May 2013, but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was still lagging behind. Mr Jehanzeb and Alia Rasheed shared the details about miseries of the poor children working in workshops, roaming in the streets, etc. They urged the civil society organisations, media, parents and government to join hands for enrolment of all the out-of-school children.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2014