Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 15% children out of schools

15 per cent children are out of schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as 85 per cent children of age 6-16 years are enrolled in public and private sector schools in the province, said Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011 launched ere on Wednesday.

The report was launched in a ceremony held here in Peshawar Press Club (PPC), with Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussain as chief guest on the occasion.

Those present on the occasion included Director, ASER, Dr. Baila Raza Jameel, Director PITE, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sarwat Jehan and others.

The survey has been conducted by the South Asia Forum for Education Development (SAFED) managed by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA) in collaboration with the Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI), Department for International Development (DFID), National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and Oxfam/Novib.

The survey said that enrollment for children aged 6-16 years stands at 85 per cent-35 per cent for girls and 65 per cent for boys while percentage for out-of-school children stood at 15 per cent including five per cent dropout rate.

They survey showed that 10.5 per cent children were never enrolled in any education facility. Among the out-of-school children 58.7 per cent have been found be girls.

The survey has found that around 72 per cent children are enrolled in government schools, and 28 per cent children in non-state educational facilities and only one per cent in madrassas in sampled districts.

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011, a citizen-led large-scale household survey in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that assessed learning outcomes of school going (5-16 years) age children in 14 rural districts has found that almost 60 per cent children cannot even read a sentence in Urdu or in their mother tongue.

According to the report, the learning outcomes of the children in arithmetic were also abysmally low pathetic.

The results of the survey show that almost 58 per cent children cannot do two-digit subtraction sums whereas almost 77 per cent of 5-16 years age children cannot do three-digit division sums.

The ASER Survey has been conducted in 14 districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Upper Dir, Swat, Battagram, Swabi, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Haripur, Charsadda, Mardan, Peshawar, Attock, Karak, Bannu, Tank and D.I. Khan.

The ASER's specially trained volunteer teams have surveyed 8,274 households in 419 villages and collected detailed information on 3-16 years age group 24,039 children (60% male and 40% female) while, 5-16 years age group children were tested for language and arithmetic competencies.

The survey also collected information on 668 schools - 412 government schools and 256 private schools. The survey also assessed literacy levels of 8,867 mothers. -