20 million Pakistani children not in school: UNICEF

[Aragorn]

ISLAMABAD: Around 20 million children in Pakistan, including an estimated 7.3 million of primary school age, are not in school, said a statement issued by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on Friday.

"Investing in children and their education is vital due to the positive impacts it has on so many socio-economic dimensions. It is therefore imperative that all children in Pakistan, both boys and girls, have the opportunity to attend and complete their schooling," the statement said.

About the efforts of the fund for promoting education for children across the country, the statement said, "UNICEF is supporting the nationwide 'Every Child in School' campaign, which encourages parents and communities to ensure that all primary school-age children are enrolled for the new school year. A special focus is being placed on enrolling girls, who represent 57 percent of primary school-age children who are not attending school. Girls from poor families in rural areas, for example, receive just over one year of education, on average."

"The disparities in educational opportunities are influenced by multiple factors, like wealth, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, early learning opportunities, access and quality of learning – and it is therefore critical that all who can positively influence children's learning opportunities should come forward to ensure that this school-year is more successful than ever," said UNICEF Pakistan Representative Dan Rohrmann.

"We must ensure that all children are in school. Free and quality education for all children, especially the most vulnerable, is essential to Pakistan's economic and social development. An investment in children is an investment in Pakistan's future," Rohrmann said, adding, "The realisation of Pakistan's vision for social and economic development depends on success of its education system."

The right of a child to receive education is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The 18th Amendment of the Constitution of Pakistan provides an added opportunity to realise this right, as Article 25A requires the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of five and 16, as determined by the law.

20 million Pakistani children not in school: UNICEF - PakTribune

 

[Skull and Bones]

20 million is a huge number, eradication of illiteracy has to be the main agenda.

 

[AHMED85]

And these 20 million Pakistani children have more than various chance to use as Abuse, Exploit, and further used in Armed Conflicts as well...

 

[lightoftruth]

children are the future of any country ,hope conditions in near future gets better

 

[lem34]

I wish our govt would pay more attention to education and literacy

 

[Bobby]

20 million kids means more than 10% of pakistan population....and if pakistan has 15% kids below 7 yrs..then it becomes 75% of kids population which very alarming

 

[somebozo]

Thats 20 million potential recruits for TTP run madrassas. Even if 1% of them materializes into potential TTP recruits that's an awful lot of numbers to wreak havoc in Pakistan.

 

[SpArK]

Pakistan needs to take a look at the Sarvashiksha abhyan programme which has shown results.

The goals of the programme were:

• Open new schools in areas which do not have them and to expand existing school infrastructures and maintenance.
  
• Address inadequate teacher numbers, and provide training a development for existing teachers
  
• Provide quality elementary education including life skills with a special focus on the education of girls and children with special needs as well as computer education

Provide free education and free mid day meals to all students. It only costs a fraction of whats been spend in other sectors like Defence.

 

[khanz]

pakistan still a very new country with rapid urbanization like pakistan is going through this number will drop in 1947 only a minority of pakistanis were ltierate and it's more than 50% it will take time to improve but it will happen.

 

[alphamale]

Pakistan should allow some freebies to children to encourage them to join schools. in govt schools in india books, school dress etc are provided free to most of students. other than that students are given lunch in school as well as other food items.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

That's a mind boggling figure.

35% of Pakistan's population is children 0-14 years in age. That's 190*0.354 = 67 million Pakistanis (approximately)

So 20 million of 67 million Pakistani kids, that's roughly one third of the eligible child population does not have access to education.

In fact i have not even excluded the children below 4 yet since they are ineligible to go to school anyways.

Hence it can be safely said that about one third of eligible Pakistani kids have no access to education.

 

[protest]

That's a mind boggling figure.

35% of Pakistan's population is children 0-14 years in age. That's 190*0.354 = 67 million Pakistanis (approximately)

So 20 million of 67 million Pakistani kids, that's roughly one third of the eligible child population does not have access to education.

In fact i have not even excluded the children below 4 yet since they are ineligible to go to school anyways.

Hence it can be safely said that about one third of eligible Pakistani kids have no access to education.

True. So more illiterates will be replacing present illiterates. More scope for propagandists to swoop over these kids with their Jihadi idealogy.