LAYYAH: Layyah has secured 12th position in education ranking of 36 districts of Punjab by dint of its better school infrastructure, says a report compiled by NGO Alif Ailaan.

The NGO, which monitors the education sector efficiency and development in the country, has compiled the report on the official data of education department.

The report says the number of out-of-school children decreased from 2.5 million to 2.4m which means 43.2 per cent of boys and 52pc of girls are still out of schools.

The report says throughout the country 62pc of students are enrolled to public schools and 38pc to private ones. The performance of education department improved as 73pc of students were enrolled to public schools and 27pc of children took admission to private schools throughout Layyah district.

The reports says 31pc of men and 55pc of women population are not attending schools.

Likewise, 33pc of schools don’t have boundary wall, 37pc are without water, 49pc without electricity and 35pc don’t have the facility of washrooms.

But the situation in Layyah district is better as 8pc of schools are without boundary wall, 3pc without water pumps, 19pc without electricity and 5pc don’t have washrooms.

The school infrastructure in the district stands at 79.71pc.

The district has 930 schools for boys and 736 for girls.

The report claims 29pc of students in the district cannot read Urdu stories and 33pc are unable to read a single sentence of English while 41pc cann’t divide two digits.

Talking to Dawn, Alif Ailaan Regional Coordinator Syed Niaz Ahmad Shah Gilani maintains that the report is based on figures provided by the government department and prepared on scientific principles.

He says: “In Layyah, 31pc of students leave schools before completing their primary education. One teacher is available for 39 students while 15pc of schools in Punjab are single-teacher institutes.”

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2016