A report on Out of School Children in Pakistan, launched here on Thursday, indicates that despite achievements in the education sector, over 6.5 million children were not enrolled in primary education and another 2.7 ere not enrolled at lower secondary level.
The report, prepared in collaboration between the Government of Pakistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, provides a detailed analyses of out-of-school children and is important for complementing the on-going work in all provinces and areas to scale up evidence based education activities to ensure that all children have access to quality education.
“The lack of reliable data and its underutilization is a serious constraint in framing policies and plans for focused and targeted interventions. The out-of-school Children study by UNICEF fills in these information gaps by providing invaluable insight into the socio-economic dimensions of exclusion of the Out of School Children.” said Khalid Hanif, additional secretary for Ministry of Education, Training and Standards in Higher Education.
The study confirms that more girls than boys are out of school – 38.9% of primary age girls are not attending school, the rate is 30.2% for boys. Children from poorer households are proportionally more out of school – 49.2% compared to 17.5% in richest quintile. Dropout is highest in the grade 5 (42.8%) indicating that many children do not transition to lower secondary education and therefore do not complete basic education.
“With the commitment expressed at the highest level of the government as well as in the public and private sector, it is evident that now is the time to address issues of quality and access to education,” said Dan Rohrmann, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan. “Out-of-School children often face deep-rooted inequalities and disparities due to gender, poverty and child labour as well as lack of school facilities and learning and teaching materials. This report will help us better understand the root causes of out-of-school children.”