Pakistan has a population of approximately 235 million, out of which at least 26.2 million children are of school-going age but still out of school. Among several other challenges that Pakistan faces as a developing country, the education crisis is one of the major ones that encompasses issues like access to education and the quality of its provision. Though efforts and improvements have been made over the past few years, there are still some
Child Rights in Focus
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Federal Education and the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) have decided to discontinue the centralised examination system for grade five in Islamabad-based schools. The FDE used to conduct centralised examinations of grades five and eight every year, and students of private schools were also allowed to appear in these examinations. The directorate had a complete directorate, but this year, the results were compiled by a private firm hired for teacher
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has directed the district health officers in the province to establish medical camps in the inaccessible rain-hit areas to immediately provide medical care to the peopleinneed andpreventthe outbreak of diseases. The DHO will also take steps to `strengthen surveillance to prevent and control waterand food-borne diseases,` according to a notification issued by the director-general (health services). It added that it had become very important due to the continuous
PESHAWAR: As the new academic year in government schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa began on Monday, students were troubled by the failure of authorities to provide them with free textbooks, according to Dawn report. Neither the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board has printed books nor are they available on the market, according to officials. They told Dawn that usually, schoolchildren received free course books from the provincial government at the start of the academic year in
NAROWAL: The minor girl, who had been abducted six days ago, was allegedly raped and found killed in fields. Muhammad Shakeel, a resident of Marth tehsil, told the police that he had come to his in-laws village Sarai Shah Fateh Tehsil, Pasrur, along with his family. He said on April 11 at 3:30pm, his two-and-a half-year-old daughter, Jannat Fatima, suddenly disappeared while playing outside the house. He said his family members and locals searched
LAHORE: Declaring the definition of ‘child’ in the Child Marriage Act, 1929 unconstitutional, the Lahore High Court has directed the Punjab government to revise the provincial version of the legislation and end the age-based distinction between males and females. `The definition of child in the 1929 Act while making a distinction on the basis of age, is not based on an intelligible criteria having nexus with the object of the law,’ Justice Shahid Karim
MANSEHRA: With a significant number of child marriage cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is still without any legislation to effectively check underage wedlock. According to government`s Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Project, which has been launched in 10 of 38 districts of the province since 2021, child brides are the worst victims of physiological traumas and reproductive health issues compared with their counterparts married off in the age of 20 and above. Its report says that
A magisterial court has extended the physical remand of an accused, implicated in a sodomy case involving a minor, by three days. The extension comes after the police requested additional time to conduct further tests on the accused. Accused Qari Abubaker was once again brought before the Shahdara police, seeking an extension of his remand to facilitate additional testing. The defence counsel argued against the extension, alleging that the police had unlawfully obtained evidence
In a tragic incident on the second day of Eid, a father in the Madwala Township of Alipur, Dera Ghazi Khan, brutally slayed eight family members, including his wife and seven children, before fleeing the scene. Upon receiving reports from reports from local residents, Madwala police Chowki and SHO of Saddar Alipur police station Asmat Abbas, Accompanied by a heavy police contingent reached the scene. Regional Police Officer (RPO) Capt (retd) Sajjad Hassan Khan
ISLAMABAD: United Nations (UN) human rights experts have expressed dismay at the lack of protection for women and girls belonging to non-Muslim communities in Pakistan, saying that they remained vulnerable to forced marriages and conversions, Dawn.com reported. “Christian and Hindu girls remain particularly vulnerable to forced religious conversion, abduction, trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, domestic servitude and sexual violence,” the rights experts said in a statement issued on 11 April 2024 in Geneva.
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai after showing concerns over 26 million out-of-school children and a large number of vacant seats for teachers in Pakistan has offered a helping hand and asked the prime minister to focus on the education sector to promote education. Malala Yousafzai in a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said: ‘Currently, 26 million children predominantly girls in the poorest districts of Pakistan remain out of school.’ Furthermore, more
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on 9 April 2024 announced that the federal government would declare an education emergency in the country and would provide all possible resources to educate children of poor families. He vowed to replicate his idea of free education to children of the poor and deserving families by establishing Daanish Schools in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, GilgitBaltistan, and remote areas of Balochistan and Sindh to fulfill aspiration of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad