LARKANA: Speakers at a seminar organised by school education and literacy department in collaboration with Unicef to kick off ‘Sindh School Enrolment Drive-2019’ in Larkana region here on Wednesday said that about 52 per cent children of schoolgoing age were out of schools last year.

Educationists, teachers and department’s officials said that the department had launched a drive in Sindh last year which proved a great success, especially in Larkana region where 166,000 new children were enrolled in primary schools.

They said that this year also it had been planned to bring at least double the number of new children than that of last year. In this context, door-to-door campaign for enrolment had also been initiated and awareness was being created through radio, pamphlets, announcement from mosques etc.

Prof Mukhtiar Samo, educationalist and writer, said that ratio of dropout students had to be checked so as to retain more and more children in schools. Corporal punishment and scarcity of facilities in government schools, especially in rural areas, were also among the reasons for low enrolment, he said.

He said that in fact government had got more capacity in all spheres for providing good education than private schools but deficit of trust forces parents in cities to take their children to private schools.

He said that the trust and confidence of parents was to be developed through performance so as to attract more and more children to government schools. The department needed to pay attention to ensure availability of schools in populated areas, quality education and good governance, he said.

Drive in Badin

BADIN: The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and district education department began enrolment drive in Badin district to bring all out-of-school children in rural areas to schools.

The drive was launched with a seminar held at Mala School in Tando Ghulam Ali town on Wednesday. Officials also enrolled a number of students on the occasion to formally inaugurate the drive.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2019