LAHORE – More than 9 million children are out of schools in Punjab, whichis Pakistan’s biggest province in terms of population.

Out of those 9.2 million children, about 5.03 million of them are girls andthe remaining 4.17 million are boys. Instead of ensuring that their futureis secured, the government has prioritized spending money on Metro Bus andOrange Line projects instead.

These numbers are embarrassing for Pakistan, which now sits at the secondspot in UNICEF rankings for having the most out-of-school childrenworldwide. If that wasn’t enough, Punjab is now considered as the provincewith the most out-of-school children worldwide. Only Nigeria has morechildren out-of-schools than Pakistan.

The alarming statistics were revealed by UNESCO education specialist RubinaNadeem in a seminar on “Equity in Education Financing, Inferences, MootPoints and Policy Asks.”

Senior Research Fellow Ahmed Ali told that 47% of the children between 5-16years of age are out of schools in Rahim Yar Khan alone.

Currently, 11.5 million children go to public schools in Punjab, accordingto the Chairman Eng Qamarul Islam Raja of Punjab Education Foundation(PEF). Apart from that, another 3 million children study at the schoolssupported by PEF.

Given these numbers, around 40% of the children in the province aredeprived of basic educational needs. To improve this abysmal state ofaffairs, Islam Raja added that the government will allocate Rs 400 billionin the upcoming budget for education.——————————

Rubina Nadeem told that poverty is one of the biggest factors behind thishuge number. Punjab’s poverty ‘headcount ratio’ currently stands at 31%.She added that the government is facing challenges like gender inequality,ethnicity, geographical location etc which is further making it difficultto educate children in Pakistan’s most populous province.