ISLAMABAD, Mar 13 (APP): Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Monday said that recent floods in the country badly impact the education sector of the country and over 34,000 public education institutions were damaged or destroyed due to this calamity.
Sharing views during an online meeting with the representatives of ‘Education Cannot Wait Mission’ under UNICEF led by Chief Humanitarian Liaison, Maarten Barends and Gender Manager UNICEF, Robert Edward Dutton and Jihane Latrous, the federal minister told that the floods have affected at least 2.6 million students across the country, said a press release issued here.
He said that almost 1 million children may drop out and not return to school as a result of the flood damage to education.
Federal Minister further said that Pakistan currently has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, recently overtaking Nigeria, with an estimated 22.8 million children out-of-school.
The majority of these out-of-school children are girls, who particularly drop out of secondary school, and over 75% of these children are in rural areas.
The Covid-19 pandemic made these challenges much more difficult, with at least 500,000 more children dropping out during the pandemic.
He said that another challenge is that the children in school are not learning well; In Pakistan, 3 in 4 children cannot read
a simple sentence by the aged 10.
Rana Tanveer highlighted that Pakistan has consistently spent between 1-3% of GDP on education through the years, as opposed to UNESCO’s recommended advice of 4-6% of GDP.
The federal Minister at the outset lauded the role of development partners for the uplift of the education sector in the country. However, in the current context of recent floods, the total cost of loss and damage to education is estimated to be $ 780 million and the UN’s $40 million appeal for education in Pakistan as of February 2023 stands at only 60% funded.
He urged that the commitments made to Pakistan in terms of financial support be immediately fulfilled as the country faces a grave crisis in the education sector.
Rana Tanveer said that the government has put a high priority on addressing the challenges of the flood-affected areas, out-of-school children, and the education of girls.
He highlighted the initiative of School on wheels and said that the purpose of this initiative is to reach the students where there is a lack of infrastructure or students that do not have the financial ability to go to school.
He said that this initiative in the future will be able to accommodate the disaster-affected population as well.
He said that Pakistan requires unique solutions to the problems and the current government is fully utilizing its resources to address the issues of the public effectively and efficiently.
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