FDE starts collecting data on capital’s out-of-school children

Official says survey being conducted to determine an updated status of the issue

ISLAMABAD: Following Prime Minister Imran Khan’s electoral promise to enrol out-of-school children, the government on Tuesday started the process of recording data about all such children in the federal capital, officials said.

While the government notes details of such children, the data form does not include any column which asks parents for the reason why these children are not in school so as that the problem keeping children out of schools can be solved.

The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) sent its staff out into the federal capital on Tuesday to collect data about all out-of-school children who are between the ages of five and 16-years-of-age. The staff will go door-to-door in all sectors of the federal capital and record the data on a performa provided by the directorate.

The performa will record data such as the name of the out-of-school child, where do they live, the name and identification of their parent or guardian along with their contact number, the union council they belong to, the government school nearest to their home, their gender, their mother tongue, nationality, last class they attended and the kind of work they are currently involved in.

Curiously, there is no column in the performa for recording the reason why the parents were not sending their children to school or whether they faced any obstacles in sending their children to school.

Officials of the FDE, who are a part of the campaign, told The Express Tribune that the campaign was initiated in the capital by the federal education ministry in light of directives from Prime Minister Imran Khan.

They added that the FDE had tasked its non-teaching staff to go door-to-door to seek data.

Once the data recording exercise is complete, the FDE officials said that those children who are found to be not in school will be admitted to nearby schools.

Apart from being provided with an education, they said that these children will also be provided with free food. In order to make their campaign more effective, the officials also made announcements from the loudspeakers of local mosques.

FDE Spokesperson Yasir Chatta told The Express Tribune that a report from 2014 had put the number of out-of-school children in the federal capital at 33,000.

He added that they were conducting the survey to determine a more current figure for out-of-school children, who they are, where do they live and what do they do.

The official added that education officers of 12 areas have been assigned  the task and they have been directed to complete the survey swiftly.

He further said that they were in the process of devising a special syllabus and school timings for such children, hinting that afternoon or evening shifts could be started at government schools for these children as first suggested by Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood last year.

Moreover, he said that efforts are also being made to provide these students with food. Despite repeated attempts, some of the parents, who had been interviewed by the FDE teams, could not be contacted because either their numbers listed were inoperative or were not attended.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2019.