National - Page 5

Local Production Of Iron, Folic Acid Supplements May Curb Anaemia In 15m Pakistani Girls

ISLAMABAD: The local production of Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFAS) in adolescent doses could prevent around 15 million adolescent girls in Pakistan from suffering from iron deficiency anemia as ensuring sustainable access to these supplements could significantly reduce costs and lessen reliance on expensive imports, according to officials and nutrition experts. Iron deficiency anaemia is the leading cause…

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…

New Textbooks For Grade 1 To 5 To Be Delivered In Two Weeks

ISLAMABAD: The supply of newly developed textbooks for grade 1 to 5…

Children With Disabilities Showcase Talent At PNCA

Islamabad: The Directorate General of Special Education (DGSE), Ministry of Federal Education…

Children at risk

Pakistan has once again found itself in the middle of a rapidly expanding public health challenge: childhood obesity. The latest findings from the World Obesity Atlas 2026 should ideally serve as a wakeup call for our health authorities. Since 2010, the prevalence of obesity among Pakistani children and adolescents has…

Education for Prosperity

Pakistan possesses a demographic profile that could either become its greatest asset or its most destabilising liability. Unfortunately, we are headed in the wrong direction. To understand the scale of the challenge, it is important to recognise the extent of Pakistan’s educational underinvestment. Unesco has advised a minimum of 4-6…

Starved Childhoods

EVERY day, in homes across Pakistan, millions of children are quietly being left behind. Not by flood or famine, earthquake or epidemic, but by the slow, invisible erosion of chronic undernutrition. The crisis unfolding concerns the 40 percent of Pakistani children under five who are stunted, the nearly 10m children…

Public Financing in Education 2025-26

Education remains a crucial driver of human development and economic growth in Pakistan. Investments in learning strengthen human capital, enhance productivity, and expand opportunities for innovation and inclusive progress. Article 25-A of the Constitution guarantees free and compulsory education for all children aged five to sixteen, while Article 37(b) commits…

Counting Children

FIRST the good news: on Feb 21, 2026, Sindh carried out its first real-time digital birth registrations of four newborns at public teaching hospitals — a long-awaited move towards reducing bureaucracy and improving archaic processes. The first paperless registrations were accomplished under a digital framework that integrated these hospitals with Nadra’s…

AI and the Child

Artificial intelligence is quietly shaping a generation’s thinking. Children are increasingly using AI tools to answer questions, complete assignments and tackle problems that once required reflection and research. What appears to be efficiency may also be altering the way thinking itself develops. This shift is unfolding within a generation shaped…

Polio, again

ANOTHER child has fallen victim to polio, this time in Sindh. The National Institute of Health this week confirmed that a four-year-old from Bello in Sujawal, Sindh, is infected with the wild poliovirus, making this the first case in 2026. The development brings back into the limelight Pakistan’s long fight…

Education Illusion

A recent federal government report on public financing in education contains embarrassing data on the low bar that we have set for the word ‘educated’, as some 77% of 10-year-olds surveyed across the country could not read or understand a simple text. Put another way, it means at least half…

HPV Campaign Reaches only 53pc of Target Girls: Survey

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s first large scale campaign to vaccinate adolescent girls against human papillomavirus (HPV) reached only slightly more than half of the target population, with an independent post campaign survey estimating coverage at 53.4 per cent and identifying weak awareness, parental refusals and reporting gaps as key factors limiting the…

Spending on Education Faces Decline over past Six Years, Says Seport

ISLAMABAD: The country continues to face critical challenges in financing and ensuring access to education, revealed a government report released on Thursday. With an alarming number of out-of-school children and 77 per cent of ten-year-olds unable to read and understand a simple text, the urgency of aligning financing priorities with…

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