An estimated 20 million children ie, almost half (47 percent) of the children between the age of 5-16 years, are out of school whereas Balochistan tops the list with 70 percent followed by the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with 60 percent out of school children.
However, the number of out-of-school children has declined from 25.02 million (2013) to 24.02 million (2014-15), revealed "Pakistan Education Statistics (2014-2015)" launched by the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) in collaboration with Alif Ailaan.
For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the government officially recognises the estimate of out-of-school children (OOSC). The PES 2014-15 covers the figure and brings the plight of OOSC to the forefront of the education crisis and concentrates on the data and evidence aspect of educational planning. The report also noted that there are estimated 50.8 million children between the ages of 5-16 of which 26.8 million are in school, 24 million are out of schools. Although the dropout rate is a serious concern, enrolment remains the major challenge. Of the 24 million out of school children 5.4 million enrolled at some stage but dropped out while 18.6 million have never attended school.
The report states that in relative terms, the province of Balochistan is home to the highest proportion of OOSC, followed by FATA, adding that as many as 70 percent (1847085) of the children in Balochistan, 60 percent (744363) in FATA, 56 percent (6663361) in Sindh, 50 percent (229773) in GB, 50 percent (631246) in AJK, 44 percent (11415282) in Punjab, 36 percent (2454086) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 11 percent (38529) in ICT.
The data further shows that more girls ie 52 percent are out of schools compared to 43 percent of boys. State of school facilities is poor as 9 percent schools do not have buildings and 18 percent are single classroom schools.
Enrolment among both boys and girls falls dramatically after primary stage. Of all the children enrolled in primary school in Pakistan, 69 percent are retained till class 5. The net enrolment at primary stage is 72 percent; it dropped to 47 percent at the middle and 31 percent at the high school stage.
Minister of Federal Education and Professional Training Engineer Muhammad Baligh-Ur-Rehman said that government was keen to reach to peak of excellence in education and was therefore working on the improvement of quality of education. "However, it is not possible to improve the quality of education without having the quality data," said the minister, adding that it is very important to properly disseminate educational data to different stakeholders, and PES is providing such an avenue to the educationists and policy makers.
Time series data provided in the report will be useful in determining the progress in education sector within the country over the period of time. This report is quite useful for the researchers, planners, and policy makers, the minister added. Baligh-Ur-Rehman said that realising the importance of quality data, a task was given to NEMIS (National Education Management Information Systems) to publish its data within shortest possible time. They took it seriously and now reports like Pakistan Education Statistics are getting published on time. He said that next report ie 2015-2016 will be published at the end of this year.
"We are not scared of accepting our flaws and as per our duty we will address them. The beauty of this report (Pakistan Education Statistics) is that it publishes the good and bad news side by side; this ensures a holistic approach to the question of data and evidence on education," said the minister.
"This is an important moment for the children of Pakistan. Now that the government is focusing on enrolment, more attention is needed on the collection and dissemination of metrics on education quality and learning outcomes in the government schools," said Mosharraf Zaidi, Campaign Director for Alif Ailaan.