Pakistan has highest school dropout rate in world.

PESHAWAR: Pakistan has one of the highest school dropout rates in the world, thanks to corporal punishment. Beatings at school are considered culturally acceptable to ensure obedience, and legislation banning this practice is hence poorly implemented. According to a NGO advocating the rights of children, 35,000 high school pupils in Pakistan drop out of the education system each year due to corporal punishment.Such beatings at schools are also responsible for one of the highest dropout rates in the world, which stands at 50 percent during the first five years of education. It is said that culturally accepted form of child abuse also contributed to the high dropout rate among children and the fact that 70,000 street children were present in the country. Yet, despite growing awareness regarding the issue, many schoolteachers remain convinced that some degree of corporal punishment is necessary to instruct children. “The teacher needs to ensure obedience and ensure children receive proper guidance. For this, an occasional light beating or other physical admonishment is necessary,” Abdul Akbar, 40, who teaches at a boy's private school at Hayatabad, told The Frontier Post. The government of the NWFP had banned corporal punishment in primary schools in 1999. A year later, the governments of Balochistan and Punjab issued directives to all teachers not to use corporal punishment on children, and followed up with disciplinary action against three teachers. The Sindh government also issued similar orders in 2007. But the fact is that, despite a campaign at government level and awareness-raising efforts by NGOs, the directives remain poorly implemented. Most children at schools across the country, both girls and boys, are beaten. "The law, as it exists now, permits parents or guardians, including teachers, to beat a child in “good intent”. This prevented police from acting on complaints of physical abuse. It is also a matter of attitude. Teachers say they need to beat children to teach them, but there is a need to educate teachers and pupils about child rights. In 2005, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with Save the Children and the Pakistan government, conducted the first in-depth survey to determine how many children were subjected to corporal punishment. All 3,582 children interviewed said they had been beaten at school. Seven percent said they had suffered serious injury as a consequence. It is widely believed the situation is even worse at the hundreds of unregulated seminary schools, or `madrasas’, scattered across Pakistan. The Pakistan Paediatric Association found last year that over 88 percent of school-going children surveyed reported suffering physical abuse. Experts believe inadequate teacher training, the lack of legislation banning corporal punishment and the perception that it must be used to teach children, are all factors behind the widespread existence of corporal punishment.