Perspective

Insights From the 2023 Census Report

The 2023 Census conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released its complete report in July 2024 indicates that the total population of Pakistan is 240 million out of which the population of children under 18 is 112 Million (47% of the total population). Children Population (under 18) Population under 18 Total Male Female Transgender Pakistan 112,472,700 58,099,978 54,370,121 2,601…

Permitted age for employment of children as domestic workers

Do you know what the minimum age is for children in the different provinces of Pakistan to be employed as domestic workers? Child labour is a provincial subject in Pakistan after the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010. The 18th Constitutional Amendment devolved the issue of labour and employment to the…

Juvenile Offenders in Punjab

The total number of convicted and undertrial juveniles imprisoned in various borstal…

Transport For Schooling

A JUDGE at the Lahore High Court recently ordered that schools should arrange for…

Deeper Poverty

PAKISTAN’S poverty crisis is far deeper than official indicators suggest. While the government celebrates economic stabilisation, almost four in every 10 Pakistanis suffer from deprivation in health, education, and living standards. The latest UNDP figures put multidimensional poverty at 38.3pc of the population against 19.3pc for South Asia. We are…

Poverty’s Long Shadow

PAKISTAN’S contribution to rising poverty across the Middle East, North Africa and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is troubling. According to the World Bank, the country accounts for nearly half of the region’s people living in extreme poverty. Ours is a story of repeated hardship. Millions of Pakistanis have endured the pandemic,…

Vanished Girls

THE scourge of female disappearances in Pakistan should be a matter of shame. Institutional reforms and criminalising chauvinistic traditions remain long overdue measures. The Lahore High Court, during the hearing of a case of disappearance, was informed by Punjab’s police chief that over 500 cases of girls reported missing were…

Unsafe Online

The internet has become an ordinary part of childhood, but the protections surrounding young users remain anything but ordinary. A new Kaspersky analysis offers a revealing picture of where Pakistani children are spending their time online. During the first eight months of 2026, YouTube accounted for 31.2% of their mobile…

School Van Safety

The sight of a school van reduced to a burnt-out shell in Murree should be enough to dispel any illusion that Pakistan’s existing approach to school transport is working. Children travelling to a school on Tuesday suffered burns after their van left the road and caught fire. Preliminary reports indicate…

Where we Fail in Education

In my classroom, I encounter students who are more concerned with securing marks than acquiring knowledge. Some have learned to memorise answers, while others believe grades could be secured through influence or money. Parents, too, often measure educational success by examination scores and admission to prestigious university programmes. The result…

Reducing the burden

PAKISTAN’S students do not need voluminous textbooks especially in the early stages; they need better learning. The Punjab government’s decision to revise the curriculum from pre-primary to Grade 5, reduce textbook volume by 25pc, and shift students away from rote learning is therefore a welcome step. The current education system…

Polio’s Stubborn Pockets

PAKISTAN enters its latest polio campaign in a better position than it did a year ago. Only four cases have been reported so far in 2026, compared with 31 last year. That is real progress, but it would be a mistake to read too much into the decline. As vaccinators…

Pims Report

PAKISTAN’S health system is trapped in a loop of doom. A localised electrical failure caused the blaze that killed 14 newborns at the Pims nursery, says an inquiry committee’s report about last month’s tragedy in Islamabad. It holds the hospital management responsible for systemic and institutional collapse due to which…

Students in Danger

It is no secret that human life barely holds any value in Karachi, given the fact that every other day brings news of a murder or a death. It is, however, unconscionable even for Karachi that a school becomes a spot that could possibly endanger children’s lives – but this…

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