perspective-education

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…

Transport For Schooling

A JUDGE at the Lahore High Court recently ordered that schools should arrange for and organise transport for schoolchildren by the end of the winter break. The order came in the hearings on the case about smog in Lahore. The use of public transport for schooling is expected to reduce vehicular traffic…

The Age Of Consent And The Borders Of Belief

ICT Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2025 marks a pivotal step toward a…

The Case for Teaching Punjabi in Schools

THE chief minister of Punjab, Ms Maryam Nawaz, has said that Punjabi…

Schools are Out, The Bills Aren’t

When summer vacations begin, Sobia Nisar tries to let her six-year-old daughter enjoy the first few weeks without too much structure. There are visits to cousins, occasional trips to the park, time at home, and an effort to keep screen time as low as possible. But keeping a child busy…

Educational Laws, Ignored

Education, deemed as the most significant marker for progress in any nation, is kept at an unbelievably low rung of Pakistan’s priority ladder. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the country has a literacy rate of only 62.3%, and around 26.2 million out-of-school children aged 5-16. Late-stage capitalism has…

Invest in Education

Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. Unfortunately, the country remains far from achieving this target. According to media reports, the national literacy rate has reached 63%, with male literacy at 73% and…

Out-Of-School Children

It has been over two years since the country declared a National Education Emergency, but Pakistan is still stuck with the second-largest out-of-school population globally. A new comprehensive comparative policy review, prepared by the Civil Services Academy (CSA) and reported on by the media earlier this week, estimates that between…

Students and Drug Addiction

The magnitude of drug abuse among students in Karachi continues to get worse, despite intervention efforts by the government and social welfare groups. While reliable data is hard to come by due to taboos around the subject, a 2024 survey by the Pakistan Narcotics Control Board found that 44% of…

Uneducated and Unwell

Pakistan’s Economic Survey 2025-26 offers a useful yardstick to gauge the state of the country’s health and education sectors over the past year. The assessment, however, offers little cause for celebration. Beneath the government’s claims of gradual progress, Pakistan continues to rank among the poorest performers in South Asia on…

Drugs and Teens

A DECADE ago, during one of the ‘Growing Up’ sessions I was holding in Karachi schools, I talked to seventh graders about drugs and addiction. Their interest and giggling prompted me to ask whether they knew where drugs could be obtained. They named several locations. Later, I realised that drug…

Raised on Fear

One day Suhana, a Year 6 student, entered the classroom with tears in her eyes. Her teachers had noticed that she had become unusually quiet over the past few months and was continuously failing her assessments. Teachers often called her out, asking her to focus more on studies and improve…

Enrolled, But Not In School

Twenty million children are characterised as ‘out of school’ in Pakistan. This figure is alarming on its own. But there is a second, quieter crisis unfolding inside the school system that we’re neglecting. A crisis that never makes the headlines and a crisis no enrollment campaign will solve. When you…

Education Corruption

The expanding corruption probe into Sindh’s education boards has laid bare a rot that goes far deeper than initially feared. What began as an investigation into irregularities at the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Mirpurkhas, has now spiralled into a province-wide scandal, implicating senior officials and the administrative hierarchy…

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