According to the Pakistan Education Statistics 2016-17 developed by the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM), 22.84 million out of 51.53 million children aged between 5 and 16 are out of schools, amounting to a staggering 44%.
While the number of children attending school has increased in the past few years – 5.21 million more kids were enrolled in schools from 2012-13 to 2016-17 – and out of school children’s numbers has reduced by 3.11 million, the overall numbers are still dismal with only 56% children going to school.
Province-wise Numbers
According to the report published by AEPAM working under the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, the region-wise data for out of school children is as follows:
- Balochistan 70%
- FATA 57%
- Sindh 52%
- Punjab 40%
- KPK 34%
- ICT 12%
The Federal Capital has the lowest percentage of kids who are out of classrooms, however, 12% is a dismal number considering the fact that it is a major educational centre in the country. KPK’s increased focus on education in the previous government’s term from 2013-18 has shown some progress ensuring that it has the lowest percentage of out of school children among other provinces.
Other Figures
The section-wise data shows the following trend:
- 5.06 million Primary-level kids are not enrolled in schools.
- 6.51 million Middle-level children don’t go to schools.
- 4.97 million High-school age kids are not in schools.
- 6.29 million Higher Secondary level kids are out of schools.
More girls, compared to boys, are not attending any school especially in remote areas of Balochistan, KPK and FATA. The enrollment rate at Primary level is 77% however it drops to an alarming 49% and 31% at Middle school and High or Higher Secondary school level respectively. In the past 4 years, the girls’ enrollment has increased significantly to 77% at Higher Secondary school stage.
The number of Higher Secondary school teachers is 120,336 compared to 486,903 at Primary and 560,642 at the High school level.
The following statistics regarding the woeful facilities at schools raise serious concerns:
- 26% of government primary schools have only 1 teacher.
- 18% of government primary schools have a single classroom.
- 32%Â of schools have no electricity.
- 22% of schools lack drinking water facility.
- 21% of schools don’t have a boundary wall.
- 22% of schools have no toilets.
Among these, Sindh, AJK and Balochistan had the worst numbers. 45.2% of schools in Sindh have electricity, 61.4% have boundary walls, 63.5% have toilets and only 57.2% have drinking water.
The Improvements
99.8% of schools in the federal capital have electricity, while Punjab is ahead of others in drinking water facilities and toilets, followed by KPK.
32,272 Madrassahs across the country have 79,289 teachers and 2.26 million students. The youth literacy rate is estimated at 72% whereas the overall literacy rate has increased to 60-61% as of 2014-15, the report quoted different surveys because of the lack of availability of recent data.
For a comprehensive report, you can follow this link.
