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provincial government to promulgate legislation in light of the recently
acknowledged right to education under Article 25-A of the constitution.
Unfortunately, even though the devolution process through changes in the
constitution had started in 2010 the only laws promulgated on the subject
were the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2011 applicable to
Sindh and the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2012 for the
federal territories. The remaining provinces were yet to introduce the required
legislation.
The Punjab Women Empowerment Package was introduced by the
provincial government in 2012. The package presented various measures for
promotion of women’s empowerment including provision of higher education
and schooling. The package committed to earmarking 60% of the funds out
of the Punjab Education Sector Reforms Programme (PESRP) to ensure
provision of missing facilities at girls’ schools.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet approved the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Private Schools Regulatory Authority Bill 2012 in order to establish a regulatory
authority to register and regulate private schools in the province. The regulatory
authority’s mandate included decisions with regard to minimum qualifications
for teachers of private educational institutions, trainings, salaries and service
matters.
The federal government launched the primary literacy plan called ‘Waseelai-Taleem’
for 3 million impoverished children. Under the four-year literacy
programme children from indigent families, especially girls, would get free
education in primary schools.
Education
The status of schooling
According to the National Commission for Human Development, only
12% of the 19 million primary school-age children in Pakistan studied beyond
the fifth grade. In essence, 22 out of every 25 primary school-age children
were expected to fail or drop out of school before the fifth grade; only a third
of those who carried through successfully completed primary education. The
latest Education For All global monitoring report by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) noted that at
least 5.1 million Pakistani children did not attend school and 63 percent of the
said number were girls. The report also stated that the school-age population
of Pakistan was 197.5 million, while up to 7.27 million adolescents were not
attending school.
Seminars and conferences held throughout the year emphasised that the
low fiscal allocation for education led to lack of provision of the most basic
facilities at schools. A seminar organised by Pakistan Coalition for Education
noted that around 10.9 percent of schools in Pakistan lacked proper buildings,
37.7% lacked boundary walls, 33.9% had no drinking water facility, 36.9%