Seminar: ‘Govt working on a bill to provide free books, uniforms to children’

SDPI research links lack of awareness to low enrolment, dropouts

ISLAMABAD: The government is working on a bill for the provision of uniforms, stationery and free books to children attending government school.

This was said by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA Romina Khurshid at a seminar titled “Making quality education accessible in Pakistan - a social accountability perspective”, organised here by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

The seminar reflected upon SDPI’s research on primary and secondary education in Khanewal and Vehari.



According to the research, one of the biggest reasons behind dropouts and low enrolment in targeted districts was low awareness of the importance of education among local communities.

The research also highlighted the centralisation of powers with district education authorities that were responsible for teachers’ dissatisfaction from the service contract, and that also affected their ability to provide quality education at public schools.

Romina Khurshid said the provision of quality education at public schools also depended a lot on recruitment of well educated and qualified teachers. She was of the view that teachers of today were not as committed to the profession as were their counterparts in the past.



SDPI Executive Director Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri said that lack of quality education opportunities in rural areas were responsible for rapid urbanisation in Pakistan. He said that unless urban-rural gaps in education delivery were addressed, migration from rural to urban areas will continue and will only add to the already ubiquitous ‘peri-urban’ settings that were home to diseases and deprivation.

SDPI Research Fellow Dr Shehryar Toru said that though the government allocates less than two per cent of the budget on education, due to poor planning, even this meagre amount is not entirely used.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2014.