Punjab, with only 61 per cent children enrolled in schools, is facing a dire education crisis. PHOTO: FILE
LAHORE:
The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has planned to enroll as many as 400,000 dropout students in the next six years, PEF Chairman Raja Muhammad Anwar said on Friday.
He was addressing a consultation titled Problems in Implementing Article 25-A (Right to Free and Compulsory Education) organised by Alif Ailaan, a campaign to promote education. Anwar said the current government had arranged for funds to implement the bill and the next government would not have to worry about lack of funds.
The PEF would provide poor and deserving children in the province 500,000 vouchers during the next five years to help them study for free in the schools of their choice, Anwar said. The vouchers would be issued under the PEF’s education voucher scheme and the foundation would cover the monthly fees and cost of text-books, he said.
Alif Ailaan would press all major political parties to make education their top priority. “Punjab cannot achieve its target of free and compulsory education before 2041. Balochistan and Sindh have already passed an ordinance and bill to implement the Article, while Punjab is still struggling to formally recognise the right to free and compulsory education” said Alif Ailaan representative Imran Khan.
Punjab, with only 61 per cent children enrolled in schools, is facing a dire education crisis. At this rate, it will not be able to provide children their constitutional right for another 28 years, he added.
Jamaat-i-Islami Deputy Secretary General Waqas Jafri said, “The responsibility for providing education rests with the government. Education is the silver bullet that will solve all our problems and improvement in this sector would be an important indicator of success for the new government.”
Only two-thirds of children old enough to go to primary schools are currently enrolled in schools in the province and the dropout rate for those who attend is almost 50 per cent. According to official figures, the dropout rate for Punjab is higher than KP’s, Alif Ailaan officials said.
Society for Advancement of Higher Education (SAHE) Chairman Abbas Rashid said ensuring access to education for children between ages five and 16 will require immense political will, planning and resource mobilisation. “Ensuring access is however only part of the equation. The provision of quality education is an equally daunting task,” he said. Parents, teachers, civil society activists and political representatives at the event agreed that the next elections would present an opportunity to ensure that education will be prioritised at the national level.
Lawyer Rafay Alam said, “We must work hard to remind candidates about their responsibility. We need to know their plans to improve literacy in the country.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2013.
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