ACCORDING to a recent report by the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), around 26 million children of school-going age in Pakistan are out of school. This is alarming. One major cause for such a large number is poverty. Much has been written and said about this, but nothing concrete has been done so far by any government.

Pakistan is among the countries that have out-of-school children in such large numbers. How will the country progress with so much of its ‘future’ happening to be out of school? Such unskilled and uneducated members of the national population will add the least to the national exchequer as they grow up.

The new government should take this issue with the seriousness it deserves, and take some solid steps to resolve it. It must allocate extra funds to address the issues and to ensure education for all. The parents of these children must be given a little monetary or employ-ment incentive so that they may not send their children to work. Similarly, local officials must be involved in running dedicated campaigns in their districts to convince the parents to send their children to schools.

Awareness campaign should be run on mainstream and social media as well. Besides, centres for technical education must be established in every district to enable the youngsters to earn sustainable income in the long run. It is only through such measures that we will be able to educate our future generations.

Syed Badshah from Buner
Buner

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2024