UN Global Education Monitoring Report, 2016 disclosed the sorry state of education in Pakistan, reports reveals that Pakistan is almost fifty years behind in its primary and 60+ years behind in its secondary education targets.
The report was released by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Tuesday. According to the report, in Pakistan, the literacy rate of poor rural males is 64%, compared to 14% for their female counterparts. In rural Pakistan, the proportion of students in grade 6 who could read a grade 2 level story in Urdu, Sindhi or Pashto was 65% while among all children aged 10 (the theoretical grade 6 age) the share was 31%. The report further said in Pakistan, only about 10% of poor children completed lower secondary school, compared to 75% of rich children in 2014. In Pakistan number of out-of-school children of primary school age has reached 12.3 million with an overall percentage of 58.88 among all primary school age children. 8.6 million Children of primary-schooling age are estimated to have never entered in school and only 41.1% of primary-school age children are attending school in Pakistan. 47.5% of girls as compared to 41.1% of boys will never enter school.
UNESCO said education contains high value in every aspect of sustainable development including increased prosperity, better agriculture and health, less violence and greater gender equality. It seems that all the focus of government is on improving infrastructure; building roads, bridges and metro projects is on top of the priority list, while nothing substantial is being done to improve education sector. Pakistan is a young country with half the population aged less than 20 years and extremely high percentage of out of school children paints alarming picture.
UN report paints a gloomy picture of child education in Pakistan.
