SWABI: The enrolment campaign for nursery class has been launched across the district as government schools have been directed to enrol all out-of-school children.

The district has 1,020 government primary schools out of which 593 schools are for boys and 427 for girls. There are also many private primary schools in the district.

The website of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistic says that according to 2008 census, male literacy rate in Swabi is 54.00 per cent. In rural areas literacy rate is 52.50 per cent while in urban areas it is 61.00 per cent. Female literacy rate in the district is 18.30 per cent. In rural areas female literacy rate is 16.70 per cent and in urban area it is 25.5 per cent.

However, officials said that literacy rate was improved in the district during the last five years owing to awareness among people about the importance of education.

They said that the campaign was aimed at convincing parents to enrol their children in school as they would get free textbooks. “We have devised a strategy to go beyond the ordinary campaign and ‘ritual’ enrolment drive carried out by schools during the last few years,” said the headmaster of a primary school.

Abdul Latif, the district president of All Teachers Association (ATA), said that the primary schoolteachers were told that they should meet the parents of children in their area to convince them to send their children to school.

“The first target is to enrol out-of-school children in nursery class. Once they get admission, then the second task of the teachers is to keep these children in the school,” teachers said, adding that the drive was launched at right time as the new academic session would be commenced from April 1.

An official said that their main objective was that none of the children remained out of school. “Our message is quite clear,” he said. The principals of private schools said that they had also launched campaign for enrolment of students.