Even though the Pakistan Constitution guarantees free education to all children, there are over 22.84 million children out-of-school across the country. This means that two out every five children of school going age are excluded from the country’s education system, according to the latest Pakistan Education Statistics report released this year.
These children are at risk since their exclusion from the formal education system hinders their ability to learn essential literacy and numeracy skills limiting their career options and preventing them from rejoining the education system.
Though Balochistan and FATA top the list of out-of-school children, Sindh is not far behind: over half of all children (51 per cent) in the province are not in school.
It is a crisis that has led to private sector experts coming together to finalise a non-formal education (NFE) policy to ensure that every child has access to quality education, including faculty from AKU’s Institute for Educational Development.
NFE consists of an accelerated curriculum aimed at providing basic numeracy and literacy skills to those outside the formal school system. The new
policy sets out guiding principles, outlines priority areas for intervention and also sets out a range of packages that can fast-track children and adult learners back into the education system.
These packages are being piloted in eight non-formal education centres in Sindh as part of a research project run by IED in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Sindh government’s Directorate of Non-Formal Education and Literacy.
“We acknowledge with special mention the contribution of two prestigious academic institutions, AKU-IED and SZABIST, whose researchers provided valuable input to the policy document,” said Muhammad Alam Thaheem, director of literacy and NFE in the Sindh government’s School Education and Literacy Department.
“Pakistan cannot make progress on achieving targets under the global Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly Goal 4 on education, unless it fulfils its promise to its out-of-school children,” said Dr Sajid Ali, interim director of IED. “This policy addresses key issues related to the status of non-formal education within the education system as a whole and we’re glad to be a part of efforts to ensure that every child receives the education they have been promised.”