The Punjab School Education Department (SED) has taken a bold step towards enhancing educational access and literacy levels in the province by launching the Special Enrolment Campaign 2023. Designed to boost student enrolment in public schools, the campaign was inaugurated by Punjab Education Minister Mansoor Qadir.
Scheduled to run until 31 October, the campaign seeks to address low enrolment rates. During the opening ceremony, Minister Qadir personally enrolled two children.
The minister emphasized the government’s commitment to providing free education to 11.7 million children. He underscored the role of both parents and teachers in ensuring quality education for children, highlighting the pivotal role of teachers in rural areas.
However, the minister expressed concern over Pakistan’s sluggish literacy rate growth, which stands at 66 percent in Punjab—below the national expectations. Drawing inspiration from Sri Lanka’s 99 percent literacy rate, he urged the community to work collectively towards improvement. Minister Qadir also applauded the distribution of free books worth Rs. 13 billion and the increased budget allocation for education, despite resource constraints.
Addressing gender equality and social progress, the minister stressed the vital importance of girls’ education and urged enhanced teacher training to better equip educators in imparting knowledge about societal roles to students.
SED Secretary Ahsan Waheed lamented the relatively slow increase in Pakistan’s literacy rate, which saw only a modest rise from 58 percent in 2014 to 62 percent in the subsequent seven to eight years. He expressed concern about the perceived decline in the quality of education in government institutions, amid the proliferation of private schools.
Secretary Waheed emphasized the campaign’s goal of reintegrating the staggering 7.3 million out-of-school children in Punjab back into the education system. The secretary also highlighted a positive stride towards inclusivity, with the establishment of schools for transgender students in nine divisional headquarters across the province.
