DERA ISMAIL KHAN, May 9: District coordinator of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, Aamir Hameed Mughal advocate, has called upon the government to enforce the compulsory primary education laws Punjab, the NWFP and Islamabad and introduce similar legislation for Sindh and Balochistan.

He said that with over 78 million illiterate citizens, Pakistan’s progress in the education sector remained unsatisfactory.

He said that besides governance, one factor responsible for slow improvement in education indicators had been relatively low level of public expenditure on education, amounting to a little over two per cent of the gross domestic product, which is well below the five per cent recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

He said the slowdown in economic activity and the rise in poverty in recent years had affected the school enrolments and 10 million children of primary school going age were not enrolled. Similarly, a high dropout rate, particularly amongst rural girls, indicated gross inefficiencies in resource use, he said.

He said that two years ago at the World Education Forum in Dakar, 180 governments, Unesco and World Bank had committed to achieving universal free primary education by 2015, gender equity in education by 2005 and 50 per cent reduction in adult literacy by 2015.

He said the “consensus has been matched by an overwhelming lack of action.” The target of gender equity in education by 2005 would be comprehensively missed, whereas Pakistan had not even drawn up a plan for putting the commitments into action.