Sanaullah Kalwar
A right to education is recognized as fundamental right under the Universal declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Constitution of Islamic republic of Pakistan 1973. It helps to reduce poverty, child mortality, population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and progress. Since the independence of Pakistan various laws have been adopted for education policies. The first step towards the importance of education was an All Pakistan education conference convened in 1947 which recognized the ‘universal primary education’ as imperative. This was later followed by a formation of a commission on national education in 1959 which suggested some qualities to be pursued
for essential and recommended compulsory education for children till the elementary stage. This commission suggested some basis for national policies on education to follow in 1969, 1972, 1980, 1992-2002 and in 2009. With each passing policy the constitutional commitment was seemed necessary to be guaranteed as fundamental right to the citizen of Pakistan. Despite all these efforts Pakistan remained floundering, its efforts remained unanswered. As quoted in “2015 Pakistan was described as Among the World’s worst performing countries in education’’ at the Oslo summit on education and Development. Along with this title, Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out of school
children (OOSC) with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5-16 not attending school, representing 44 percentage of the total population in this age group. In 5-9 age group, 5 million children are not enrolled in schools and after primary-school age, the number of OOSC doubles, with 11.4m adolescents between the age of 10-14 not receiving formal education. If we calculate this in province wise then Sindh is with 52 percent of the poorest children in which 58 percent girls are out of school, and in Balochistan,78
percent of girls are out of school. In KP 1.8million children aged 5-17 are out of school. Punjab is the only province where numbers of child out of school are less as compare to other provinces. There are many reasons to this, but one of the main reason is not enough operational government schools. Government schools are in condition even in Pakistan’s major cities, many children can’t reach a school on foot safely and in due time. The situation is far worse in rural areas where schools are scarce and less operational.
Due to this poor education many families expressed frustration about the quality of education available to them. Parents remain reluctant that there is no point in sending children to school. In schools supervised under government, parents and students complained of teachers showing up good to students, overcrowding, and poor facilities. At private schools, particularly low-cost private schools, concerns related to teachers being badly educated and unqualified, and the instruction being patchy and unregulated. Teachers in both government and private schools do pressurize the parents to pay for out-
of-school tutoring, an additional expense. As reported by Human rights watch that in both government and private schools, use of corporal punishment and abusive behavior by teachers was widely reported. Furthermore Government schools are generally more affordable than private education, but they charge for registration and exam fees. And sometimes stationery, copies, uniforms, school bags, and shoes.
There is need of arduous actions to ensure the education which is recognized as fundamental right under international and national law, in Universal declaration for human rights (UDHR) read as “Everyone has the right to education, education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. elementary education shall be compulsory, technical education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit”. And same enshrined in article 25-A of constitution of Islamic republic of Pakistan 1973 read as “ The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of age of five to sixteen years in such a manner as may be determined by law”. There are some other provisions too which recognize the
education only solution to eradicate the social evils article 37(b) and article 38(b).United Nations’ agency for education known as UNICEF is also supporting to hold a healthy dialogue on education budgeting and financing, to highlight areas of improvement in Pakistan for better planning and improvement in the issue raised. Therefore Federal government, national assembly and senate should create a enabling environment through a well organized campaign for proper legislation and urging parents to send their
children to school. State television and other electronic media should be advised to broadcast advocacy messages.
