KARACHI: The alliance of the two leading non-profits has announced that they will enroll 10,000 more out-of-school children in one year in the network of jointly-run charitable schools in Sindh.

The non-profits - Shahid Afridi Foundation (SAF) and Green Crescent Trust (GCT) made the announcement to this effect at their joint annual fundraiser held here at a hotel. The event was attended by the leading businessmen and philanthropists of Karachi.

The two charities have been working together in the education sector for the past four years having an enrolment of over 3,000 children from underprivileged families in eight jointly run schools in backward areas of Karachi.

Both the charities aim to expand their network of charitable schools to tackle the gigantic task of enrolling out-of-school children.

GCT CEO, Zahid Saeed, said that over 22 million children are still out-of-school in Pakistan. He said the authentic data showed that the number of illiterate children in the country surpassed the total population of Australia.

He said the latest verified data compiled by GCT showed that Pakistan’s total spending on education exceeded the defense budget of the country. He said the education budgets of provincial governments, Islamabad, Azad Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan, if combined together was more than the annual defense budget of Pakistan.

He said that Pakistan despite spending Rs 1,300 billion on education annually was far from tackling the issue of out-of-school children as their number kept on increasing every year.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022