Education needs top priority as 25m children still out of school: planning minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal said that 2.5 Crore children out of 7 Crore are out-of-school as there is a need of promotion of education and human resource development which is essential for steering the country in the right direction.

The minister said that the government would establish a state-of-the-art Teachers Training Centre in Islamabad within two years to improve education quality and produce manpower to cater contemporary needs.

He said that the Centre, in collaboration with provincial education departments, would be the best in South Asia, where students could get quality education focusing on improving their critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving and team learning skills.

While addressing the event on launch of Report on District Education Performance Index 2020-23 and a news conference on Friday, the minister said that according to the report, “Pakistan’s national average score on the index is a modest 53 out of 100, placing the country in the “Low” performance category. Within the country, there are significant variations across provinces, with Punjab emerging as the top performer at 61/100. KP follows with 55/100, while Sindh and Balochistan trail with scores of 51.5/100 and 46/100, respectively. Notably, none of the provinces reached the “High” or “Very High” performance categories with both Punjab and KP falling into the “Medium” category.”

The minister said no single country has attained development and prosperity without achieving at least a 90 percent literacy rate.

He said that the report reveals striking disparities in education performance across Pakistan’s provinces and districts. He said that the first-of-its-kind tool measures district-level education performance, focusing on key outcomes such as access, learning, equity, governance, and inputs such as infrastructure and public financing. He said that covering 134 districts, including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and all districts in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Punjab, and Sindh, DEPIx classifies districts into four categories: Very High, High, Medium, and Low.

He said that alarmingly, none of the 134 districts assessed falls within the “Very High” performance category, and only Islamabad ranks in the “High” category, making it the best-performing district nationwide.

“Nearly two-fifths of the districts (58) are categorised as “Medium,” with Punjab contributing 32 of these districts, followed by KP with 17, and Sindh with eight. However, more than half of Pakistan’s districts (76) are classified as “Low” performers. These low-performing districts are predominantly found in Balochistan and Sindh, with Balochistan having 33 and Sindh 22, further highlighting the significant inter-provincial disparities in education,” he said.

The minister said that the index also indicates significant disparities across the different domains of education system. He said that nationally, the highest score was achieved in the infrastructure and access domain (59/100), indicating progress in expanding educational opportunities. “However, the report also notes that actual access figures might be higher, particularly in urban centres with a strong presence of private schools, which were not fully accounted for due to data limitations,” he said.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024