LAHORE, March 26: Department for International Development’s (DFID) special representative on education in Pakistan Sir Michael Barber has said the dropout rate is still high in Punjab and there is a long way to go to address the problem.

Delivering his keynote address at the launch of his essay “The good news from Pakistan” at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Tuesday, Sir Michael said some 13 to 16 per cent of children were still out of schools in Punjab.

During the last three years when the Punjab Education Reform Roadmap was implemented, Sir Michael said more than one million extra children had been enrolled in schools. He also made a tall claim that 91 per cent of government schools had all facilities including functioning electricity, drinking water, toilet and boundary walls.

Sir Michael said he had developed a system in place that now data was coming from each school and respective districts on a monthly basis. He claimed that no executive district officer (education) was appointed on political grounds but merit. He said teachers were appointed on merit that would help improve quality of education.

Sir Michael admitted that making a good policy was completing only 10 per cent of the task, while implementing a policy remained the real issue and general goals were not met. Stating that this time, it would be different, he added that no one could improve education system in Punjab by being cautious. He said it would be safer to be bold and ambitious in Pakistan to resolve issues in the country. “It is better to take risks than doing nothing,” he added.

During the last three years, he said, students attendance had increased from 83 per cent to 92 per cent – meaning one million more students were attending everyday. Similarly, he said, teachers’ attendance had increased from 81 per cent to 92 per cent. He said teachers were being provided with easy-to-use lesson plans and new textbooks to every student. He claimed that all the key indicators had shown significant improvement over the time.

Sir Michael claimed that there was growing evidence that learning outcomes were rising. He said the Punjab Education Foundation’s public-funded voucher scheme was enabling over 140,000 out-of-school children of poor families to attend private schools.

He stressed that the new government must continue this reform programme to achieve successes in future. “The future of a country depends upon race between education and catastrophe,” he added. Responding to a question about changes in Class-X Urdu textbook, Punjab School Education Secretary Aslam Kamboh said media reports were sometimes not for information but some other purposes.