Report expresses concern over status of education in Punjab

A recent report titled Annual State of Education Report, released by a non-government organisation, states that 15per cent of children between ages of five and 16 in Punjab are out of school.

Education experts have said that hundreds of thousands of children of school-going age in Punjab are out of schools while the government remains busy in constructing bridges and running trains.

The Article 25 A of the constitution makes it mandatory for the state to provide free and compulsory education to the children between five to fifteen years of age.

The ASAR report states that the standard of education being imparted to the kids is not satisfactory. The report showed that 30 per cent children in grade five are unable to read grade two-level text in Urdu.

The experts urged the government to invest more in education, adding that the construction of fly-over costs Rs 3 billion and with the same amount of money, missing facilities can be provided to dozens of schools in Punjab.  There are tens of dozens of schools in Punjab without a boundary wall, the report said.

“We often hear intellectuals complaining about the minimum coverage of issues related to education in the media. I find it amusing that while intellectuals complain about it, hundreds of thousands of people on social media hardly speak about these issues”, development expert Salman Abid said.

He said 15 per cent of children in Punjab are out of school but no one seems to care about it. Most of us remain engaged in meaningless debates over the size of funeral or whether or not an Oscar for a documentary on honor killing brings shame to the country, while the rulers keep spending budget wherever they like. If as citizens we don’t stand up for issues that concern us, we cannot expect the rulers to invest in education, he added.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Secretary General IA Rehman said a dialogue between the civil society and government on education should be held, adding that the quality of education should be reviewed as it is more important than increasing the number and facilities of schools.

The government needs to take steps to implement the laws. Article 25-A is directly linked to the future of our coming generation. It shouldn’t be taken for granted and the government should ensure at all costs that every child gets compulsory education. Experts were of the opinion that building bridges can wait but building new generation can certainly not.