- Private schools are booming, up seven per cent from last year
- 76 per cent of students in grade five cannot read; 31 per cent cannot solve two-digit math sums
Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) and Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) organised the provincial launch of the “Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan – 2014” for Sindh province on Thursday.
The ASER survey is the largest citizen-led national household survey for children between the ages of three and 16. It is the largest data set to date which is being quoted in policy documents and reports at national as well as international level.
Sindh Education Foundation Managing Director Aziz Kabani said that it was inspiring to see slight improvement in access to educational facilities and increase in literacy in Sindh. He said that the event was not only meant to launch the ASER Pakistan 2014 report, but was also a chance for government officials to inform the audience about the initiatives that are being taken to improve the education status at the grassroots level.
Director Programs-ITA Baela Raza Jameel shared the findings from ASER Pakistan 2014 in detail. She expressed pleasure over the fact that extensive data had been collected in 14.5 weeks.
The findings indicate that there has been a 7 per cent increase in the number of private schools in Sindh within the last year alone. Rural areas in the province have around 17 per cent of the total enrolment. This is up from 10 per cent that was recorded by ASER last year. The numbers prove that private schools are becoming a more popular choice. Of course this statistic is also alarming because it signifies an increasing reliance on private education, which is not something all people can afford. “This is a point to ponder for the government that can take it as a policy change to go for low-cost private schools in rural areas,” she said.
“It is also alarming to know that 70 per cent of students from grades 2-4 sat together in the same class in 2013, the number jumped to 74 per cent in 2014,” Jameel said while talking about multi-grading.
Moreover, the report indicated that Sindh is facing a crisis in terms of what students will do once their done with their primary education. A single secondary school is meant to cater to students graduating from over 24 primary institutes. 91 per cent schools in Sindh provide only primary education, whereas the remaining nine per cent offer secondary or higher education. This is the tipping point where parents are often forced to place their children into private schools – if they can afford to. This is one reason that Sindh has repeatedly had the most number of children out of schools; its inefficiencies are only matched by those demonstrated in Balochistan.
A comparison with ASER reports released in the previous four years shows that Sindh has had nothing but stoic responses to the deteriorating school dropout rate. Around 31 per cent of those between the 6-16 age bracket are not in schools. The numbers are no better for early childhood education where around 63 per cent are out of schools
Even the children who have managed to stay in schools are doing no better. 76 per cent of students in grade five cannot read. Around 31 per cent cannot solve two-digit math sums. The learning environment isn’t conducive to learning and lacks basic facilities. Evidence of this is the fact that around 41 per cent don’t even have usable water for students while half of all schools don’t have toilets.
Pakistan has no hope for meeting the Millennium Developmental Goals on any fronts, but it is failing in spectacular fashion when it comes to education where it has a zero percent change of achieving the goals in every single province.