SWABI: The provincial government’s strategy to enroll the out-of-school children has failed as the exercise has been only limited to issuing press statements and conducting photo sessions on social media, sources said here on Sunday.

Sources in both public and private sector schools told Dawn that every year the provincial education directorate issued instructions to district education officers to take steps to enroll out-of-school children, but the policy didn’t work as the number of such children had increased with passage of time.

“Dropout rate in Swabi is high due to poverty, corporal punishment and mostly uneducated family backgrounds,” a source said, adding bringing dropouts back to school was not an easy task, and there was dire need of taking practical steps.

The sources said neither the provincial officials nor district education officers properly monitored enrolment campaigns, leading to their failure.

A retired head of a higher secondary school said on condition of anonymity that during the enrolment campaigns every year they just prepared a banner, assembled a few classes, held a walk and took photos, which were then shared with the provincial education directorate.

He said practical steps like visiting the house of dropouts, meeting with their parents and convincing them to readmit their children in the nearest school were envisaged at the policy level but never implemented.

A principal said often children dropped out of school due to poverty to earn a living for their families. “How we can convince his parents to send him back to school when their financial means don’t afford them to do so.”

Heads of both public and private institutions said a comprehensive policy needed to be formulated so that these children were not only brought back to school, but their families were also provided with means to afford their education expenditures.

The teachers said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government during its last two terms never tried to take effective steps for students’ enrolment.

When contacted, district education officer Mohammad Irfan, however, told Dawn that during the last two years over 8,000 out-of-school children had been enrolled in schools.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2024