There is a worrying possibility that when policymakers decide what is best for our country’s youth, they may ignore the invisible segments: out-of-school children. In recent years, there have been grand discussions about how Pakistan could leverage technological advancements to get back on the road to progress and prosperity. Roundtables are held to explore how, for instance, artificial intelligence (AI) can create opportunities for our young. Unfortunately, these measures are reserved for the privileged lot. And by privileged, we do not mean the country’s rich, but all those segments who can afford to keep their children in schools. The latest data from Gallup Pakistan and the Sindh provincial government serves as a bleak reminder of our collective failure. With nearly 28 per cent of children aged between five and 16 out of school, Pakistan risks leaving a good number of children behind.
According to Gallup, 34 per cent of girls are out of school, compared to 22 per cent of boys. In most families, girls become the next in charge after their mothers, meaning they have to take care of their households as well. In most cases, mothers rely on their eldest daughters to look after the younger children in their absence. Then there is another problem that is hardly discussed. The medium of instruction in most schools is English, a foreign language that is difficult for the majority. Most children struggle to understand instructions and end up dropping out, both by choice and out of financial compulsion. Besides these barriers, the physical environment has also created many challenges for the unprivileged. The monstrous episode of the 2022 floods keeps resurfacing to remind us of the horrors it brought. In Sindh, over 19,500 schools were damaged or destroyed. While Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s report of 5,000 schools being under reconstruction is a good start, the reality is that over 14,000 institutions remain in ruins. For the 1.4 million students whose facilities are being restored, there are millions more for whom the school is still a makeshift tent.
Unfortunately, the urgency needed to resolve these issues is absent in our power corridors. The government leans more towards letting the private sector take over education, raising fears that people’s basic right might land in the hands of profiteers for whom the bottom line matters more than children’s learning outcomes. The government’s response must move beyond the sluggish pace of routine bureaucracy. Reconstruction in flood-affected regions must be treated with the urgency of a national security priority. Pakistan cannot afford to wait for better times. Things are challenging and require extra efforts by the government. If the state continues to allow nearly a third of its children to remain uneducated, the youth dividend so often cited by politicians will become a distant dream.
