ISLAMABAD: The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has set a target of increasing enrollment from 225,000 to 250,000 students in all schools during the upcoming academic session.

FDE Director General Dr Ikram Ali Malik had held a meeting with all school heads in groups, motivating them to increase enrollments. The FDE believes that enrollment could be raised to 250,000.

As many as 225,118 students are currently studying in 423 schools and colleges being run by the FDE.

The directorate officials told Dawn that during the month of Ramazan, Dr Ikram Ali Malik held meetings with school principals, asking them to improve enrollments.

The officials said after the meetings, the director general said with little effort, schools could admit 25,000 new students in the academic session that would begin in August this year.

They said Dr Malik assured the principals that they would be provided the necessary staff and resources but they would have to achieve the enrollment target.

The school heads have been asked to initiate a well-designed enrollment campaign and engage parent-teacher associations and the local community to motivate parents to send their children to schools.

It is relevant to note here that Pakistan has over 22 million out-of-school children.

“Our main focus is to increase enrollment and urge parents to rely on government schools instead of private institutions; meanwhile we will also focus on out-of-school children, but our main agenda is to improve enrollment,” an FDE director said.

He said in Islamabad, public schools had huge building with adequate facilities such as state-of-the-art laboratories, huge playgrounds, free textbooks, no fee and well-trained staff.

“So with a little push, enrollment could be increased,” he added.

After the adoption of Article 25-A of the Constitution many years ago, the FDE-run schools have been providing free education.

When contacted, FDE director general said all heads had been asked to increase enrollment from this academic session.

“Yes, I have set a target of increasing enrollment up to 250,000 and the best performing principals would be appreciated,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2022