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Development Index (EDI) is 113, which is much worse than regional countries<br />

such as India (102) and Bhutan (98). In terms of numbers, the report enumerated<br />

that around 5.1 million children aged five to nine years in Pakistan were out of<br />

school, which was the second highest number of out-of-school children in<br />

the world. If the age bracket was increased to include adolescents, it would<br />

show that a total 25 million children are not enrolled in schools. The report<br />

also stated that Pakistan was unlikely to achieve the millennium development<br />

goal of universal primary education for all by 2015. Pakistan also lagged behind<br />

other South Asian countries in its education expenditure. At 2.8 percent of its<br />

gross national product (GNP), Pakistan’s expenditure on education was the<br />

second lowest in South Asia, ahead of only Bangladesh at 2.4 percent.<br />

A report by Society for the Protection and Rehabilitation of Children<br />

(SPARC) that focused on the state of Pakistan’s children in 2011, also presented<br />

similar figures, stating that around 25 million children were out of school in<br />

Pakistan, while seven million were yet to receive any form of primary schooling.<br />

About basic infrastructure for schools, the report noted that the situation was<br />

the most precarious in Sindh, where 35 percent of schools were without a<br />

building and in many cases without a boundary wall. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,<br />

Balochistan and Punjab followed with 23 percent, 18 percent and 10 percent<br />

of such schools, respectively. The report also estimated that there are<br />

approximately 30,000 ghost schools throughout Pakistan which continued to<br />

receive government funding. A report titled ‘Living under Drones’ released by<br />

Stanford Law School and New York University in 2012, stated that children<br />

were being taken out of schools in the drone affected areas due to fear of<br />

attacks or because of the financial and emotional impacts of the strikes.<br />

2012 was also marked by a horrific attack on Malala Yousafzai, a 13-yearold<br />

girl from Swat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, who was shot by<br />

Rawalpindi: Schools lacked buildings even in main cities.<br />

181<br />

State of Human Rights in 2012

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