KARACHI, Jan 9: The rising number of out-of-school children is the biggest problem faced by Sindh. This was said at a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Science and Technology was held here at the Sindh Assembly building with committee head Senator Razina Alam Khan in the chair.

Sindh Education Secretary Sabhago Khan Jatoi briefed the meeting on the overall scenario of education in Sindh. He also threw light on the challenges being faced by the education sector in the province and the ways to improve the present dismal situation.

He told the committee that one of the biggest problems being faced by Sindh was getting out-of-school children back to classrooms. Mr Jatoi disclosed that in Sindh 1.64 million children in age group of 5-9 years, 2.16 million in the age group of 10-12 years, and 1.02 million children in the age group 13-14 years were not going to schools.

He said that the mission statement of the Sindh education department was to universalise education, raising literary rate to 100 per cent and impart quality education to students.

Briefing the committee on facility gap in government schools, the Sindh education secretary said there were a lot of schools in Sindh with no electricity and even drinking water. He further disclosed that there were as many as 6,700 closed and 10,002 shelters-less schools in Sindh.

Expressing concern over the situation, Senator Razina Alam Khan said that the objective behind such meetings was to listen directly the problems faced by provinces and discuss how to resolve them.

She said that her committee was now working on an important subject of non-functional schools throughout the country and wanted to find out the reasons as to why these schools were non-functional. She said that it was necessary to involve district governments to solve this issue.

Speaking on the occasion, Sindh Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro said that the private sector, as it was working in Punjab, must also come forward in Sindh province and open schools in villages and rural areas. She assured that the Sindh government would fully encourage and support the private sector in this regard.

The committee is scheduled to visit some educational institutes in Karachi on January 10 to review their standard of education.—-PPI