ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a seminar on Wednesday said as many as 25 million children in Pakistan were out of school whereas about six million of them had never seen even classroom.

The seminar ‘Ideas and Conversations for Disruptive Innovation in Education in Pakistan’ was organised by Alif Ailaan with the support of government, private and non-governmental organisations at Aiwan-i-Quaid, Fatima Jinnah Park.

According to them, those who were enrolled, dropped out within the first three years of their enrolment. Without introducing new ideas, education crisis in the country cannot be resolved, they said.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal speaking to participants said Pakistani society was characterised by great disparities in income, education and opportunity.

“Nearly half of our country’s children are not in schools and getting them there is a Herculean challenge. The role of technology and innovation in such a scenario is very important to deliver education not only to children but also to the society as a whole,” he said.

MNA Asad Umer from PTI said that there were serious issues in terms of capacity and misplaced priorities of the government in the improvement of the standard of public sector schools.

“Though the private sector presents a dramatic increase in the provision of quality education, very limited people can access and afford it. The government needs to adopt a single schooling system across the board to remove discrimination in the educations system,” he said.

Member of the Provincial Assembly from Faisalabad Sheikh Ijaz said that he had set an example by enrolling his children in government schools.

Team leader of Alif Ailaan Mosharraf Zaidi said major problems in education, i.e. low enrolment rates, poor quality, lack of accountability and the total absence of a conversation cannot be solved without new approach.

“We need to stimulate thinking in the public, private and non-profit sectors about solutions to these problems,” he said.

“Use of technology can help to provide education in remote areas and disrupt current practices of supplying education,” he said.

Participants agreed to explore new avenues to solve the dropout issue.