• 6 million missing out on higher secondary education
• Minister defends ‘pink buses’, says initiative aims to counter spike in dropout rate

ISLAMABAD: The number of out-of-school children across the country remained above 26 million despite several initiatives by the government in recent years as well as the commitments to bring these children back to schools.

The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training informed the National Assembly that there were over 26 million out-of-school children in the country and various steps were being taken to bring them back to schools.

In response to a question asked by MNA Shahida Rehmani, Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, in a written response on Monday which was not taken up on Monday – told the lower house that there were over 26 million out-of-school children as per the 2021-22 data.

He said there were 26.20 million such children, adding that about 10 million (10,774,890) students were in the 5-9 age bracket. About five million students (4,935,484) were in the 10-12 age bracket whereas 4.5 million were in the 13-14 age bracket, as per the response. According to the minister, about 6 million (5,950,609) students aged 13-16 are missing higher secondary education.

MNA Shahida Rehmani had also asked about steps being taken by the government to increase the enrolment of girls in schools.

The minister responded that the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) (which deals with Islamabad-based institutes only) had established 200 computer labs in educational institutions to teach coding, aiming to enhance the IT and entrepreneurial skills of girls.

The FDE also introduced STEM programmes in 30 institutions, ensuring equal opportunities for girls’ institutions while also employing a higher number of female teachers.

The minister said that the FDE had also launched nutritional programmes to enhance the learning capabilities of students. Besides other initiatives, the minister said that no tuition fee was charged till grade 10 and free textbooks were also provided to the students in schools.

‘Pink Bus Project’

Meanwhile, MNA Sehar Kamran sought details of all buses available in schools and colleges and whether it was true that 20 buses allocated for public schools and colleges had been converted for the ‘Pink Bus Project’ to cater to female students and teachers instead of all students and teachers. She questioned the reason for starting the bus project with the buses reserved for everyone in schools.

In response, the minister said that buses were allotted to schools as per the demand of the institutions in light of the number of students.

The minister said there were 311 operational buses for the FDE schools and colleges, adding that previously 258 buses were functional and the remaining were dysfunctional and parked due to a shortage of fuel funds, machinery faults, and lack of drivers.

The minister said that the FDE recently added 78 more buses from the dysfunctional buses to the pool of operational buses increasing the total number of buses from 258 to 331.

He added there was a serious issue of shortage of funds for fuel as well as the drivers and conductors.

To cater to this problem and to facilitate students and teachers, the FDE under the education ministry hired 200 drivers and conductors from a third party to provide bus service to the students in public schools.

“Due to high fuel prices, it was noticed that there were dropouts of girls who came from rural areas due to non-affordability of conveyance. Also, there were significant requests and demands from girls commuting to colleges/schools from rural areas to urban areas schools/colleges to provide them with bus facilities.

“In order to avoid dropouts, 20 buses were pulled from this pool of buses, which were converted into pink buses to provide free-of-cost pick-and-drop facilities to the female students working women, female teachers of institutions situated in Islamabad/ICT,” the reply added.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2024