THE United Nations report on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has pointed out that the world is falling far behind in terms of achieving universal quality education.

Without additional steps, there would be 84 million out-of-school (OOS) children by 2030, while 300 million children would lack foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills, and only one in six countries would be able to achieve universal secondary education completion target.

There are more than 26 million OOS children in Pakistan, and Balochistan alone accounts for 3.13 million of them. Education quality in rural and urban areas of the province is a core concern, with hundreds of public schools lacking qualified and trained teachers and basic infrastructure.

Alternative education pathways include the accelerated learning programme (ALP), which is an age-appropriate, flexible learning platform that provides unrestricted quality education opportunities under trained tutors to OOS children. The ALP is a designed package spanning 30 months to cover primary education courses, and 18 further months to complete the middle tier of education.

There are about 300 ALP centres already, but enrolment has been on the lower side. The government and all its supporting partners must ensure access to quality and free primary education.

Abdul Raheem
Quetta

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2025