Among the series of sufferings we are faced with, nothing is more painful than to see children ages 5 to 16 on the street as they are not going to school. According to UNICEF Pakistan, the country is home to the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children with an estimated 22.8 million children (5-16) not attending school. This is a huge number and is 44 per cent of the total population in this age group. This number includes dropouts and those who have never been to school, mainly due to gender, geographic and socio-economic gaps. All over the world, 59 million children are in the out of school children category.
The world is turning to drop the ugly number and in this connection, world’s biggest forum on education – World Innovation Summit for Education of 2019 – has promised to bring these children to school besides addressing the chronic issues impeding learning and teaching standards in schools. The war on illiteracy and poor education quality is led by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, founder and chair of the Education Above All Foundation, an initiative of the Qatar Foundation. This year’s summit discussed the strategies to win global advocacy while Sheikha Moza pledged her commitment to ensuring universal primary education for every child in the world. Such kind of sprit and dedication is needed from other corners of the world too.
The Education Above All has benefited one million children in Pakistan, whereas on the global front, the programme has met its commitment to enroll 10 million out of school children in active collaboration with governments and partner non-governmental organisations. To reach the milestone of the zero out of school children, much more is needed to be done to invent strategies to increase enrollment, retention and classroom learning targets. Some countries are near achieving universal primary education goals by developing sustainable education systems. Events like WISE provide them with a platform to share their strategies to open the heart and schools to children whose dreams and rights to education remain unmet. Barriers to beat illiteracy, dropouts and poor learning can be lack of resources, lack of innovative techniques, increasing conflicts and ensuing displacement and migration. A global struggle is needed to overcome dropouts, out-of-school-population and poor learning, and Education Above All is spearheading the drive.
The Pakistani government has taken a right step towards increasing enrolment by initiating a second shift in public schools. The strategy to lift the status of disadvantaged children by empowering them with education is the best thing, the government can do.
Source: https://dailytimes.com.pk/506167/education-above-all/
