Sindh CM greenlights upgradation of all primary schools

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday greenlighted a policy of gradually upgrading all primary schools to post-primary schools in an effort to bring back 4.1 million out-of-school children, ARY News reported.

Chairing a meeting in this regard, Sindh CM directed the Education Department to implement a policy of gradually upgrading all primary schools to post-primary schools and develop a connection with cluster schools to retain children and prevent the dropout ratio from increasing.

The Chief Minister mentioned that the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) published a report in January 2024, which stated that there are 26.2 million children out of school in Pakistan. Sindh’s share in this number came out to be 7.63 million children, which is a very alarming situation.

In response to this, Education Minister Sardar Shah quoted the latest figures from the Ministry of Education (Federal Government), he said there are 4.1 million children out of school in Sindh.

The education minister further informed the Chief Minister that there are a total of 14,208,257 children in Sindh, out of which 10,204,647 are receiving education in government, private, Madrasah, Sindh Education Foundation, and other institutions, while 4.1 million are out-of-school.

Breaking down the numbers, he stated that 4.5 million children attended government schools, 3.9 million attended private schools, and 840,000 children attended Sindh Education Foundation. Additionally, 500,000 children attended Madarsahs, and 500,000 attended federal/Pak Army/Navy schools.

Meanwhile, CM Murad said that in 2019, UNICEF Sindh conducted a sample study to determine the reasons behind children not attending school in the province.

The results of the study revealed that children between the ages of 5 and 16 were out of school for several reasons, which included poverty, families not giving importance to education, girls’ schools not being available, schools being too far away, and others.

To tackle this issue, the Chief Minister approved a policy to gradually upgrade all primary schools to post-primary schools in the Annual Development Plan (ADPs). Additionally, the government will work on developing linkages with cluster schools to retain children and prevent dropouts.

The Education Minister Sardar Shah highlighted the importance of providing non-formal education opportunities to children between the ages of 9 and 16.

He also mentioned that Accelerated Learning Programs could be used to bring non-formal education into the mainstream. However, he noted that the current resources were insufficient to meet the demand for non-formal education.

In response, the CM said that his government was in the process of creating an Authority of non-formal education to better address the educational needs of these children.

The Chief Minister stated that he would request the prime minister for financial support for three priority areas. These include upgrading schools from Primary to Elementary, rehabilitating remaining flood-affected schools, and establishing more Non-formal literacy centers in all districts, he said.