Out-of-school children: Pakistan stands second in world ranking: Unicef official

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) education specialist Rubina Nadeem said on Wednesday that Pakistan stands on second position in world ranking of out-of-school children with only Nigeria ahead of it. Punjab in Pakistan is on the top among the provinces where 9.2 million children are out-of-schools.
She said this while addressing the Policy Dialogue with the theme of "Equity in Education Financing, Inferences, Moot Points and Policy Asks" organised by Institute of Social and Policy Sciences. She also said that out of 9.2 million out-of-school children 5.03 million were girls. She further said in Punjab the government over last many years has taken a number of initiatives for ensuring equitable access to quality education.
Despite appreciable strides to ensure equitable education, the magnitude of challenge in Punjab is still enormous.
She also said that province is faced multiple challenges relating to equitable access to education. A number of factors including gender, location, geographical access, ethnicity, poverty status, and disability constrain children access to educational facilities and their retention in early years of schooling.
She said poverty plays an important role in limiting the educational opportunities available to a child. Punjab's multidimensional poverty "headcount ratio" has been estimated at around 31 percent of the population. Chairman Punjab Education Foundation Engineer Qamar ul Islam Raja talked in detail about the initiatives taken by the Punjab government to increase the enrollment of children in the schools.
He said that 11.5 million children were enrolled in the public sector schools of the Punjab while 3 million children were enrolled in the schools run by Punjab Education Foundation.
He said that Punjab government had taken steps for the implantation for the Article 25 A of the constitution but he said that still a lot of work should be done. He said Punjab government will allocate Rs 400 billion for school education in the upcoming budget.Senior Research Fellow I-SAPS, Ahmed Ali said that an inverse relationship exists between the proportion of out of school children of 5-16 years' age and per student spending at district level-Rahim Yar Khan, Vehari, and Muzaffargarh.