Gaps - Page 9

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…

Though Easily Treatable, Pneumonia Kills Thousands of Children, Say Experts

ISLAMABAD: Health officials, pediatricians and lawmakers on November 25 warned childhood pneumonia is becoming a silent national emergency, driven by dangerously low routine immunisation, poor primary healthcare, and widespread misuse of antibiotics, despite the disease being entirely preventable and easily treatable with low-cost tools. Speaking at a national dialogue on…

Out-of-School kids May Exceed 30m Next Year

RAWALPINDI: The Department of Education has granted final approval for the revised admissions policy for the 2026 academic year, together with the new school calendar and the schedule for annual examinations. It has also sanctioned the replacement of 29 textbooks for Classes 6 to 10. The newly proposed syllabus has…

K-P Lawmakers Protest over 14 Schools left Non-Functional for More than Decade

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly witnessed a noisy session over the issue of 14 schools in Lower Dir having no teachers for 14 years. Member of the Provincial Assembly, Ubaidur Rahman stated, schools have not been made functional since long, depriving students, particurly the female students, of education. Law Minister Aftab Alam…

Schools or Brands

Private education has over the years steadily morphed into a profit-maximising business, overshadowing its core mission of learning and development. This shift has taken such precedence that many schools today consider themselves brands first and educational institutions second — complete with branded uniforms and study packs. It is this unchecked…

Authorities Fail to Retrieve illegally Occupied Land of Girls’ School

TAXILA: The local administration and education department have failed to retrieve 10 kanals of Government Girls Elementary School Marri in tehsil Jand of Attock from the encroachment mafia. According to reports, the school was originally established on 15 kanals, but due to encroachment by influential individuals, its area has now…

Disturbing Reality of Grave Offenses Among Confined Juveniles

Islamabad: It’s time to look beyond the headlines of child labor and face a harsher truth. The poor are losing their sons to the streets. Across our class-divided society, a chilling wave of juvenile criminality is sweeping up the voiceless children of marginalised families. This crisis isn’t an anomaly—it’s the…

Who Gets Educated?

Across Pakistan’s towns and cities, families wrestle with agonising choices each month: which bill to pay, which cost to delay and, increasingly, whether to keep paying school fees. After rent and food, little remains. For many households, that scarcity means deciding which child gets to stay in school. More often…

Storm-hit School Provided Tents in Upper Kohistan

MANSEHRA: A government-run school in Shitial area of Upper Kohistan, which had been functioning in the open after its prefabricated structure was destroyed in a windstorm, has now been shifted to tents. “We have provided tents to education department not only for this school but also for other institutions that…

Our Sanitation Crisis

At some point in their lives, those who call this country home would have had to go through the experience of being outside when nature calls in the full knowledge that there are few, if any, public toilets nearby. While most men would still be able to make do in…

Silent Crisis of Child Labour

In both urban and rural parts of Rawalpindi, it is common to find children shouldering responsibilities far beyond their years. In villages, young boys can be seen working long hours in the fields beside their fathers and uncles. Meanwhile, girls—often no older than five or six—begin assisting their mothers with…