Why are 13.1 Million Girls out of school?

Education of Girls is in the worst condition in Pakistan. According to a survey, Pakistan ranked number three in the race of “Out of School Girls.” The out of school girls have different challenges and barriers which are

·         Missing Facilities

·         Bad Transport Facilities

·         Poverty

·         Traditional Barriers and Wrong Religious perceptions

·         Gender Discrimination

·         Early Age Marriages

·         Security, Lack of Safe environment and physical disabilities

According to a research 33.6% girls not attend school due to the will of parents. Girl’s enrollment ratio is 54% at primary level which falls to 21% at the middle level and 13% at secondary level due to drop out. It also states 29% girls dropped out at middle level as they have to help in work at home. 

Every single girl out of school is a challenge to implementation of article 25-A Right to education act which passed in 2013 at the national level in Pakistan. Schools have many missing facilities such as no electricity and toilets, shortage of teachers, lack of rooms, dangerous building conditions and lack of furniture which causes drop out. Girls lost interest due to poor conditions of schools and education.

In mostly rural areas, schools are far away from home, and there are no transport facilities even in the major cities. It makes getting an education harder for girls. In long travels, security of girls is a concern for parents. Especially in rural areas harassment and rape is increasing day by day. It is a threat to girl’s education, and concerned persons need to improve law and order with the implementation of harassment law 509.

Poverty is the toughest challenge for girls to join the school and stay there. The government started some programs to provide school girls stipends. It helped girls at minor level, as allowance amount was weak and limited. Another solution to deal with poverty is entrepreneurship skills, vocational and part time skill based training which need to spread at a massive level.

Wrong cultural traditions and false religious perceptions are formidable barriers to girl’s education. Cultural and societal traditions also initiate gender discrimination which gives right of education to a boy and ignorance to a girl. A massive continuous awareness required to cure ill minded people and remove wrong perceptions.

Early child marriages are a global issue, and due to the huge population, it is a big problem in Pakistan. It is a lifetime barrier for girls particularly in rural areas. According to UNICEF 37 per cent of Pakistani women get married before reaching the age of 18 years. Civil society organizations and parliamentarians are making real efforts to change minimum marriage age for girls to 18 years which is now 16 years but not succeeded yet. Overall, some progress was raised by the committee as fine and punishment increased. It also leads to early pregnancies which can cause the death of girls.

United Nations celebrate International Girl Child Day every year on 11 October. “On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. This year, as the international community assesses progress under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) since their implementation in 2000 and sets goals to be achieved by 2030, girls born at the turn of the millennium have reached adolescence, and the generation of girls born this year will be adolescents in 2030. As we reflect on the achievements of the past 15 years and plan sustainable development goals for the next 15, it is an opportune time to consider the importance of social, economic, and political investment in the power of adolescent girls as fundamental to breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination and to achieving equitable and sustainable development outcomes”.     

It is not only associated with rural areas. The metropolitan city Lahore is also suffering from girl’s education. Approximately 1, 50,000 girls are out of school at Lahore district, and the biggest challenge is the absence of quality education. According to a learning test of Lahore 42% girls cannot read an Urdu sentence, 37% girls cannot read English words and 47% girls cannot solve a two-digit division question of Math.

One year passed to Right to education act 2014 Punjab but till now rules of business not formed. Government acts showgirls education as a non-priority issue. A discussion started on gender equality and equity, but nothing is achieved on it yet. It is need of time to make budget gender-based and increase the level of quality to reduce drop out at the middle level. Teacher training and proper planning are required to meet sustainable development goals. Punjab government should remove the ban from the formation of new public schools. Prime Minister of Pakistan has promised to increase education spending to 4% of GDP till 2018 but not shared proper plan and a yearly increase of education budget percentage of GDP.

Kafka Welfare Organization (KWO) is working with a mission to educate girls by preventing harmful factors like child marriages. Discussion on girl’s education is not common. To raise voice for girl’s education, KWO organized a roundtable conference Under Alif Ailaan Education Campaign and Kafka Welfare Organization to discuss challenges and barriers to girl’s education with some solutions. The session was held at an art gallery of Lahore to associate education with culture. Politicians, CSOs, media representatives and other stakeholders of education participated in the meeting.

During interactive round table conference, next steps were discussed. Firstly, it was agreed upon that it is necessary to increase commitment and motivation to bring out of school girls back to school. Setting education in priority of state and politicians need. Therefore providing more incentives and subsidies towards girl’s education would be an effective approach.

KWO also organized a community session at a low earning rural area of Lahore with Alif Ailaan campaign, where people are facing missing facilities and poor quality education at public schools. The target audience was mothers of Maryam Colony. They were sensitized on the right to education act and how they can demand (raise voice for) quality education for their children. KWO is making different efforts to highlight this sensitive and important issue. 

By Umair Asif Global Youth Ambassador Pakistan 

*All data facts are taken by Alif Ailaan publication 25 million broken promises and information about International Girls Child day is taken from United Nations website. 

Quality Education and Status of Teachers

http://yjaw.blogspot.kr/2017/02/quality-education-and-status-of-teachers.html

Voice of Parents NA 126 Lahore

Alif Ailaan with his partner Kafka Welfare Organization has organized a School Management Committees Convention at Punjab University Lahore to discuss the issues and structure of SMCs, school funds, teacher and parent’s issues of public schools. The aim of event was to discuss highlight voice of parents to provide their children a better quality education. MNA Shafqat Mahmood, MPA Murad Ras, Schools Heads, Teachers and Parents participated in the session.  

Shafqat Mehmood, MNA NA-126 Said:

·          I am forced to say this with deep regret that we, as a nation, haven’t given education the priority that it deserves in the last 60 years.

·       With regards to the suggestions regarding the effectiveness of SMCs, Shafqat Mehmood noted that the collaboration between SMCs and local councils could drastically improve educational outcomes in schools.

·       Shafqat Mehmood identified three key issues pertaining to education; including missing facilities, lack of teacher training and nepotism in recruitment's.

Muraad Raas, MPA PP-152 Said:

·       I visited this girls’ school in Ganga Ice Factory. I went to a classroom where half the students were sitting on the few chairs that were available while the other half were sitting on the floor. I could imagine how those sitting on the floor would be wondering, “why am I sitting on the floor while my friend gets to take the chair?” Through the very windows of the classroom, they could see the private school where children are playing basketball on lavishly carpeted grounds. I ask myself, are we really educating our children by creating such environments or are we wounding them psychologically?

·       Recurrent issues raised by the audience included lack of basic facilities, lack of sufficient monetary incentives for teachers and lack of quality education in government schools. In this regard, Saniya, a teacher at Punjab University presented her personal case. Hailing from a government school herself, Sania went on to pursue her PhD in Political Science and is currently teaching at Punjab University. She shared her critical observation of there being a lack of focus on confidence-building, personality development and inculcation of ethics by teachers in government schools.

·       Despite several issues raised, several parents and teachers noted that the majority of government schools in Model Town were functioning well. A good majority of the teachers in these schools had an academic qualification equivalent to M.Phil, while a few had post doctorate degrees as well. One head master, however, noted that the monthly salary being paid to an M.Phil pass teacher was as low as PKR 20,000. Without adequate monetary incentives, any hopes for retaining or attracting qualified teachers in government schools are at best misplaced. Furthermore, another head master from a school in Model Town noted that despite the political representatives reaffirming better functioning of government schools in the constituency, none of the representatives at various tiers had their own children enrolled in these “good government schools”. “All I ask is for them to give us a chance. To come visit and see for themselves”, noted the head master.

·       A union Councillor from Model Town stated on the occasion that councils at union and tehsil level could play an instrumental role in the resolution of education issues at schools but as of now, no decision-making authority rested with the local councils.

More budget allocations are required to get 4% GPD target for education

LAHORE: In its ninth consecutive budget, the PML-N government in Punjab has again decreased budget allocations for education.

“In 2013-14, the Punjab education budget was 26 per cent of the total provincial budget whereas only 18.6 per cent of the total budget in 2016-17 has been allocated for education,” says a non-government organisation (NGO), Alif Ailaan, in its Punjab education budget analysis session organised at a local hotel on Monday.

The session was told the Punjab government for the current fiscal year had allocated Rs312bn, which was 18.6pc of the total budget allocation. The budget allocation decreased from 21.4pc from the last year when the education budget was Rs310bn, about 21pc of the total provincial budget that had already decreased from 24pc in 2014-15, the organisation said.

“The percentage share of education in Punjab’s overall budget has seen downfall from 26 per cent in 2013-14 to 18.6 per cent in 2016-17,” it said.

Last year, under the development budget for school education, the government had allocated R32.8bn.

“Out of which, as of April 2016, the government had only been able to spend Rs14bn, which is just over 42pc. This reveals that the budgetary allocations are not getting transferred into meaningful spending. Consequently, the education indicators continue to show little progress in the province.”

“Unless the department and the ministry share constituency wise data, including development allocations, the province will continue to see constituencies being preferred over the actual need,” said MPA Sadia Sohail, adding that political participation in budget-making process was lacking.

“We need to correct our behaviours and need a priority-based political will regarding education. We need same education system and syllabus for all people.”

The session was also attended by Population and Welfare Minister Zakia Shah Nawaz, MNA Rana Muhammad Afzal and MPAs Najma Afzal, Khola Amber, Aleem Shah, Fatima Fareeha and Tamkeen Niazi.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2016

Score of Lahore & Punjab, in District Education Ranking 2016

National Education Score

Education Score based on middle school

Table 8: District education scores (middle schools)

Table 10: District School Infrastructure Score (primary school)

Table 11: District School Infrastructure Scores (middle schools)

School Facilities Completeness Score

Table 12: Provincial and national school facility completeness score

Table 13: School Facilities Completeness Score at district level

Number of primary schools

Single-teacher schools

Single classroom schools

District Education Scores (primary schools) with PEC

Lahore got 13 position

Reference: District Education Ranking 2016 by Alif Ailaan 

District Education Ranking 2016 Launch

Inter-province inequality as high as ever: Punjab dominates education rankings, Balochistan& FATA languish


Islamabad 24 May: AlifAilaan and SustainableDevelopment Policy Institute (SDPI), launched the fourth edition of Pakistan District Education Ranking 2016. This year, the report covers all 151 districts across the country to assess their educationscores, based on levels of enrolment, retention, learning, gender parity and school facilities.


A new index for School Completeness shows that only 52% of all government schools in the country have all four facilities (namely, toilets, boundary walls, running electricity and drinking water). It also shows that a staggering 81% of all government schools are primary schools. This essentially implies that that after primary education, children in Pakistan have very limited opportunities to continue their education.
Speaking on the event: Mr. BalighurRehman-Minister of State for Education and Interior (PML-N) stated that,“when we were adopting the SDGs, the ministry of education was actively involved, whether it was in Paris or in Pakistan. We were the first ministry to establish an SDG cell in our
Dr. ArifAlvi, Member National Assembly NA-250 (PTI), stated that, “I commend AlifAilaan in its efforts to link politicians to the state of education in their constituencies. I believe it is absolutely necessary for politicians to take ownership of the schools and children in their respective constituencies at an individual level. I aim to facilitate a deeper interaction with the parents of school-going children in my constituency in the up-coming Ramadan so that their issues are heard and they are more involved in the education of their children”.
MianIftikharHussain, General Secretary (ANP) stated that,“quality of education is a moral obligation of the state. It is critical for the politicians to prioritize their agenda on education”. Talking about the importance of robust data regime, he noted that there is an absolute need for a population census to have a reliable baseline for ranking the districts and tracking the SDG4 targets.
Marc Andre Franche, Country Director UNDP stated that, “the district rankings highlight the systematic inequalities among the districts and the regions in Pakistan. The state of education in the districts of South Punjab, Balochistan and FATA is worse than some of the sub-Saharan African countries, while the districts of North Punjab emulate developed countries like Canada”. He further highlighted the need for constituency level data on education in order to empower voters to raise more concerted demands from their political representatives.
The district rankings reflect that Islamabad, Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) all have relatively better scores on the educationand infrastructure indices. However, FATA, Balochistan and Sindh are consistently poor performers, relative to the rest of the country. Though some districts have demonstrated remarkable improvements, there is little to indicate any major nationwide improvement in either education quality or the quality of school infrastructure. Some of the drops in the overall scores may also be explained by a more rigorous and robust data collection process across the country, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan.


The Federal Capital is atop both the provincial/regional rankings, as well as the district rankings for the first time with increased learning and enrolment scores.
Likewise, although Punjab’s education score decreased due to a decline in the retention score, it scored highest in gender parity. It is important to note that last year the education score of the province suffered a drop in learning outcomes. However the provincial government responded to this by re-focusing on the quality of education. Consequently, this year Punjab demonstrates a slight improvement in the learning outcomes score. Punjab also continues to provide a superior school infrastructure to its students, where 93% of the schools have all four basic facilities.
While KP demonstrated improvements in both enrolment and gender parity scores, the retention rate of the province declined, consequently affecting the overall education score. On the other hand, the province is ranked higher at third in school infrastructure score, which indicates significant improvement. However 50% of its schools still lack the provision of all four basic facilities.
Balochistan and Sindh continue to suffer the lowest education and infrastructure scores. Balochistan’s education score has dropped, movingBalochistan to the last rank. Except for Quetta (which is amongst the top 50), almost half of the districts of Balochistan rank outside the top 100.


Sindh has the lowest learning outcomes this year. Moreover,only the six of its districts are in the top half of the rankings table. Once again, Karachi is the only district in the top 50. The state of school infrastructure also continues to suffer, where only 23% schools could be considered complete, having all four basic facilities.
Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) has experienced the largest improvement amongst provinces/regions with a substantial increase in its education score.However the infrastructure score remains critical,withonly 13% of the schools providing all basic facilities to children (electricity, drinking water, toilet facility and boundary wall).
Although GB’s progress has been stagnant over the past four years, given the numerous challenges, the region still managed to show relative improvements with increased education score of 3%. Six out of seven districts of GB continue to stay in the top half of the rankings. However the infrastructure score remains deplorable, with 50% of the schools failing to provide basic facilities to students.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) demonstrate improvement in their education score by 3%, enabling FATA to outrank Baluchistan. Interestingly FR Kohat, which was unranked in previous years (due to non-availability of data), has managed to get the 39th position.For the first time, FATA managed to break into the top 50, with a remarkable education score in FR Kohat at 72.77.
The quality of education remains the biggest challenge for Pakistan, as there are only moderate improvements in the score of learning outcomes - last year from 52.33 to 54.78 this year. The evidence from Islamabad, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwademonstrates that strong political commitment can translate into improved education outcomes. The overall evidence from across the country however remains stark – and suggests that Pakistan will need dramatically more political commitment, in all parts of the country, to secure a decent future for its children.

Union Councils Wise Availability of Public Schools in Lahore

Total Union Councils in Lahore: 274

According to http://schoolportal.punjab.gov.pk/

Lahore has 25 H. Sec. Schools (M: 7, F: 18)
332 H. Schools (M:156, F:176)
230 Middle Schools (M:94, F:136)
616 Primary Schools (M:348, F:268)


Important Points:

• 267 UCs has no Boys H. Sec. Schools
• 256 UCs has no Girls H. Sec. Schools
• 118 UCs has no Boys H. Schools
• 98 UCs has no Girls H. Schools