School-going children: Senate body for incentives to raise enrolments

The Senate Standing Committee on Education called upon the government to introduce incentives for school going children, particularly girls for achieving the goal of education for all. During a meeting of the committee recently, the provinces were asked to formulate laws according to their conditions and requirements to make education accessible to all.
The committee said the focus of government efforts should be on increasing enrolment in rural and backward areas. The committee recommended to formulate a law at federal level to achieve free and compulsory education. Talking to APP, Chairman of the Committee Senator S M Zafar said that a three-member committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of Senator Saeeda Iqbal to engage the provinces in the enactment of this free education law.
Before the introduction of law, the citizens were responsible to get education, but now the burden has been shifted and it is the responsibility of state to provide them access to education. He said that a close co-ordination is needed among the provinces to bring uniform curricula while heading towards accomplishment of this fundamental goal of free education also enshrined in article 25 A of the constitution.
The parents have responsibility to educate their children and they must be fined under the law if they do not send their children to schools, he added. He admitted the fact that the challenges caused by shortage of resources would make it difficult to achieve the UN target of Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
The country has allocated 2.05 percent of GDP on education which is not sufficient to meet the needs of the education sector so funds can be acquired from Bait-ul-Mal or USAID, he added. The country has to overcome formidable hurdles to reach 86 percent literacy rate by 2015 in line with the education policy.
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010 of Unesco said Pakistan is among a group of 29 countries which is not likely to achieve target of EFA and MDGs by 2015. According to Global Monitoring Report of Unesco, as percentage of GDP, Pakistan spent 2.8 percent public expenditure on education whereas it was 3.3 percent in India, 5.6 percent in Iran, 5.4 percent in Sri Lanka, 8.3 percent in Maldives, 3.8 percent in Nepal and 2.4 percent in Bangladesh.