Sajid Irfan

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government needs to take effective steps to improve the education sector as 4.7 million children are out of school in the province owing to different reasons, WealthPK reports. The development of the education sector is not up to the mark in Pakistan, especially in the less developed areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Only 62% of the population of the country has access to education. A large number of children in the province are forced to work and earn livelihoods for their families.

An official of the education department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told WealthPK that almost 25 million children in the country were out of school owing to financial issues or their disinterest in getting an education. He said that the government should plan to launch a large number of educational projects in the backward areas of the country.

He said that according to the data of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), 4.7 million children aged between five and 16 in KP were out of school. The survey also revealed that almost 74% of girls and 26% of boys were out of school in the province, he added.

The official said there were thousands of out-of-school children (OSC) in the province due to socioeconomic imbalances, poor coordination between government departments and insufficient transportation facilities for schoolchildren, especially for girls, as well as the custom of early marriage.

Another official said that 200 alternate learning centres would be opened for children aged between nine to 16 while Rs3 billion would be spent on converting two-room schools into six-room educational institutions. He said that the government had planned to construct 100 primary schools as well as 150 middle and secondary schools in settled districts of the province in the upcoming fiscal year. “Practical skills are very helpful and necessary for every student. Unfortunately, Pakistani students lack skills. They are bound to read books and pass the examinations. There is a dire need to impart practical skills to students,” he said.

The official said that most villages did not have schools. He said that children had to cover a distance of several kilometres to reach their school in another village. “In many schools, teachers are also unwilling to work due to long distance and a low salary. There is no transportation service for them. The government should increase the salaries of teachers so that they can meet their daily expenses easily,” he added.

He said that school buildings were in dilapidated condition in villages and backward areas of the country. He said that students were forced to sit on the ground and there were no proper seating arrangements for them in the schools. He added that in many areas, schools did not have buildings and students attended their classes under the open sky or under the shade of trees.

The official said that the government needed to take concrete steps to strengthen the sector and improve the quality of education. He said that the government should establish new schools and upgrade the existing ones so that people could have easy access to education.

He also stressed the need to improve the learning environment and provide facilities to the schools. “Digitisation of schools, enhancing the resilience of educational institutions to cater to unforeseen situations, promoting distance learning and capacity building of teachers are some other steps to be taken by the government,” he told WealthPK.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk