KARACHI, March 13: The data compiled by the Sindh Education Management Information System (SEMIS) of the provincial education department, depicts distressing situation as according to it hardly 24 per cent of the boys and girls of four to 20 years of age are enrolled, while rest of them are out of schools and colleges in the province.

There are total 13,717,995 (7,265,199 boys and 6,452,796 girls) people in the age group of four to 20 years, of which only 3,233,628 (2,033,321 boys and 1,200,307 girls) are enrolled at schools and colleges. No significant improvement in enrolment has been registered despite introducing education sector reforms and spending billions of rupees in this sector during last few years, setting yearly targets for achieving the ultimate target of enrolling all the school-age children in the province by the year 2010.

The gender-wise statistics show that the number of girls out of schools and colleges was higher than that of the boys as their percentage has been worked out at 72 per cent and 81 per cent, respectively.

The Sindh Education Profile, prepared by the SEMIS says that total population of children in four-to-nine-year age-group is 6,226,075 (3,274,910 boys and 2,951,165 girls), of which a total of 2,348,684 (1,517,606 boys and 831,078 girls) are enrolled at primary schools, taking the overall ratio of enrolment to 38 per cent.

The number of children in 10-12 age group is said to be 2,723,752 (1,489,176 boys and 1,234,576 girls) of which 445,514 (266,343 boys and 179,171 girls) are enrolled in middle schools, showing a ratio of 16 per cent, thus 84 per cent children of this age group are out of schools.

The province has 1,306,639 children (707,831 boys and 598,808 girls) of 13-13 age group, of which 245,565 (147,868 boys and 97,697 girls) or 19 per cent are enrolled at secondary schools. This shows that 81 per cent of this age group are out of schools.

The population of boys and girls of 15-16 age group is 1,192,184 (634,449 boys and 548,735 girls), of which 154,479 (82,657 boys and 71,822 girls) or only 13 per cent of the total are enrolled at intermediate colleges.

At degree colleges, the gap widens further as out of 1,596,311 population (802,085 boys and 794,226 girls) of 17-18 age group, only 38,720 or 2 percent are enrolled and 98 percent of such population is out of colleges.

At post-graduation level the number of population of 19-20 age group is 673,034 (347,748 boys and 325,286 girls), of which only 666 (273 boys and 393 girls) are enrolled.

The total number of primary schools in Sindh is 39,176 (17,226 boys, 6,093 girls and 15,857 combined), middle schools 2,240 (1,159 boys, 674 girls and 407 combined), secondary schools 1,480 (823 boys, 423 girls and 234 combined) and higher secondary schools, 139 (53 boys, 56 girls and 30 combined). —PPI