Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Expressing grave concern over the 2.2 million out of school children, with girls being the majority, experts have stressed on the
implementation of Free and Compulsory Education Act and girls right to
secondary education in Punjab.
These thoughts were expressed in the consultation session on the
Implementation of Free & Compulsory Primary Education Act and Girls’
Right to Secondary Education organized by Awaz CDS and National
Commission for Human Rights. The major focus of the session was to
emphasize on the initiatives needed to be taken to ensure primary
education of children and reducing girls drop out from secondary
schools as it would contribute a lot towards ensuring educated women
population, a guarantee to economic and social stability.
Chief Executive Awaz CDS, Mohammad Zia ur Rehman, Member/Commissioner
(Punjab) National Commission for Human Rights, Nadeem Ashraf, Director
School Education Department, Mr. Ghulam Farid, Member Punjab Assembly,
Ms. Uswa Aftab, and Ms. Ayesha Iqbal, Ms Noorish Sabah, Director
Punjab Literacy Department, Ms. Baela Raza Jamil from ITA and other
academics as well as members from NGOs attended the event.
In his opening remarks, Zia ur Rahman, Chief Executive Awaz CDS
highlighted the significance of girls quality secondary education and
explained the grey areas in the way of girls education in Punjab.
He urged the Punjab government to immediately notify the Punjab Free
and Compulsory Education Act 2014 which was approved earlier . He
stressed for increase in development budgets for school education as
developments budgets are only being distributed to PEF and PEIMA
rather development budgets needs to be utilized for the development of
public schools especially for girls, where missing facilities and
accessibility is still a major challenge. He further warned that due
to fuel price hike many girls are leaving schools and more drop outs
are expected after summer vacations.
Mr. Nadeem Ashraf, Member/ Commissioner (Punjab) National commission
for Human Rights welcomed the audience and discussed the bottlenecks
and challenges in implementing Free and Compulsory education act and
ensuring girls basic right of getting education and shift nation
towards stability.
He said that according to PSLM 2019-20, In Punjab for every 100 girls
enrolled at the primary level, 38 are out-of-school and for every 100
girls enrolled at the secondary level, 162 are out-of-school .
Ms. Ayesha Iqbal, Member Punjab Assembly highlighted the recent
development for enforcement of Punjab Free & Compulsory Education
Amendment Act 2020 for the immediate enactment of law . She stressed
that Governor Punjab Mr. Baligh-ur-Rehman should take steps to get
this education Act notified without any delay as education is priority
for all parties.
Member Punjab Assembly, Ms. Uswa Aftab on behalf of School Education
Standing Committee stressed on the importance of notification of
Punjab Free & Compulsory Education Act 2014 to ensure every child is
getting basic education and country is progressing towards achieving
SDGs on education.
She said that her department is constantly working on this sector and
said they would make extra efforts to sensitize more and more people
on girls education in order to minimize girls secondary school drop
out ratio.
The floor was then opened for Answer questions followed by insightful
discussion on making primary education compulsory in the province and
ensuring girls are getting secondary education and thus contributing
towards stability and national goals of educated Pakistan.
