Gaps - Page 2

Federal Health Minister Urges Action As Vaccination Refusals Hindering Polio Eradication

Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal has expressed serious concern over vaccine refusals, stating that nearly 43,000 parents in Sindh — 42,000 of them in Karachi alone —have refused polio vaccination for their children, posing a major obstacle to the eradication efforts. He made these remarks while visiting the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre for Polio (EOC) in Sindh to assess…

Birth Registration Of Girls Remains Low

Majority of women and girls have no legal existence in the official systems PESHAWAR: Where limited access to registration centers, particularly in remote and underserved areas, can partly explain the low birth registration rate for girls in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the social bias that confines women to the four walls of the…

Father Tells Heartbreaking Story Of Losing Two Children In Swat Tragedy

MARDAN: A man from Mardan recounted the tragic incident at the Swat…

CII To Deliberate On Mothers Milk Registry Today

ISLAMABAD: Senior child specialists from the Sindh Institute of Child Health and…

Questions Raised about BSEK’s Conduct of Matric Exams as Cheating Cases, Irregularities surface in Karachi

• Officials say hundreds of students caught cheating • Board claims 95pc exam centres ‘completely secure’ • Videos of cheating, copying go viral • Political parties concerned over mismanagement KARACHI: As the ongoing matric examinations continue under the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK), multiple incidents of cheating, paper leaks…

Bara Schools Fail Girls Amid Shortages

BARA: Girls’ education in Khyber district, particularly in Bara tehsil, is confronting serious challenges. While a large number of educational institutions exist on paper, the severe shortage of basic facilities, teaching staff, and modern learning opportunities has badly affected the entire education system. According to official statistics, there are 420…

Educational Discrimination of its Kind

The other day, a private educational institution offered me an opportunity to guide its students on how to solve the question paper in board exams to achieve maximum marks or at least how to avoid deduction of marks because of lack of right and relevant information. The selected students, the…

79pc of HIV-infected Pakistanis Remain Undiagnosed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s HIV crisis is worsening. Nearly 79 percent of people living with HIV do not know they are infected, and most of those who are diagnosed are not receiving treatment. Health experts raised serious concerns on Saturday and called for accountability in healthcare system, along with an independent audit…

In Unsafe Hands

AN HIV outbreak among children should have been a turning point for Taunsa’s main public hospital. Instead, an investigation by the BBC suggests that little has changed. Undercover footage from the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, filmed about eight months after the government’s crackdown in March 2025, shows syringes being reused, injections administered through clothing, and unqualified…

No End to Resistance to Vaccine: Minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Health Mustafa Kamal on April 14 said resistance against vaccines could not be mitigated despite spending tens of millions of dollars by Unicef. The minister stated this while chairing a meeting which reviewed the expenditures and measurable impact of the ongoing vaccination awareness campaigns. During a…

Private Schools Pocketing Over Rs5bn by Ignoring Scholarship Quota, Islamabad High Court informed

ISLAMABAD: In a revelation that underscores a massive gap between legislative intent and ground reality, it has emerged that private educational institutions (PEIs) in the federal capital are allegedly pocketing between Rs5 billion and Rs6 billion annually by failing to implement a mandatory 10 per cent scholarship quota for deserving…

Overpopulation No Longer a Distant Threat!

PESHAWAR: Overpopulation is increasingly being recognised as a major driver leading to poverty, unemployment and widening socioeconomic inequalities, casting long shadows over human development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. As dusk settles over Mohib Banda, a small village in Pabbi tehsil, Nowshera, 28-year-old Shagufta Bibi lights a candle in the corner of…

Chaotic Exams

Every year, as examinations begin under the Board of Secondary Education Karachi, the same pattern of disruption and disorder resurfaces, exposing an examination system that appears incapable of learning from its own repetition. What should be a routine, well-oiled operation instead descends into confusion, placing an unfair burden on students…

500 Low-performing Govt Primary Schools Outsourced in KP

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elementary and Secondary Education Department has outsourced 500 low-performing government primary schools in the province to private partners. In the second phase, another 1,500 such schools will be outsourced and the paperwork has already started on it, officials in the education department told Dawn on condition of anonymity. They said…