Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on 20th August said that the government had established the Pakistan Education Endowment Fund to support children from low-income families to obtain higher education. The announcement comes months after PM Shehbaz declared an education emergency in the country and vowed to get around 26 million out-of-school children enrolled. According to Abdullah A. Fadil, the representative for United Nations Children’s Funds (Unicef) in Pakistan, over 70 percent of children aged 10 in Pakistan could not read
Child Rights in Focus
GUJAR KHAN: Jhelum police have solved the blind murder of a six-year-old boy by arresting his 13-year-old relative. Abdul Jabbar, a resident of Kotha Purana area, told Kala Gujaran police on August 6 that the body of his son, Usman, with his throat slit was found under a tree near his residence. After extensive investigations, police succeeded in arresting the suspect, identified as Abdullah, 13, a close relative of the victim. Talking to Dawn,
RAHIM YAR KHAN: The Punjab School Education Department (SED) has decided to privatise government schools under a public-private partnership model in the coming months and Rahim Yar Khan will be the most affected district with the private sector taking over the maximum number of schools — 1,000 out of 2,777 — among all districts of the province. Initially, as many as 13,000 out of 49,000 schools across Punjab will be handed over to the
As the climate crisis continues to escalate, the pressure to implement sectoral policies will also increase. It is often said that climate change is multi-sectoral therefore making it difficult to implement policies after the 18th Amendment. However, beyond that, no mention is made of how to bridge the gap between policy and implementation, affix responsibility, monitor progress, and make systemic functions robust and accountable. It has become common practice to identify problems and attribute
The prevalence of child marriages in certain parts of Pakistan, as exemplified by the recent reports of 45 underage girls being married off in Khan Muhammad Mallah village of Dadu in Sindh province, is utterly unacceptable. The directive issued by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to launch a thorough investigation into these incidents is a commendable move, but it’s crucial for the authorities to take decisive action to address this deeply troubling issue. The
LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department on Saturday announced the ‘Back to School Campaign’, aiming at enrolling 500,000 children under the ‘Parho or Jagmagao’ slogan. Punjab Minister for School Education Rana Sikandar Hayat chaired a review meeting on the campaign. He emphasised the need to execute the campaign with full vigour, saying that dropout rate after the holidays should be minimised, ideally reduced to zero. The minister directed that the community be engaged through
ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel on Friday stressed the need for modern educational facilities in the rural areas of the federal capital. The National Assembly Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training at a meeting chaired by Dr Azimuddin Zahid Lakhvi discussed various agenda items, including the ongoing face-lifting and overhauling projects of schools and colleges. “The committee members also noted that the schools in peripheral areas of Islamabad are deprived of the facilities
The Sindh government, in a move to strengthen the education system in the province, has set a target of 0.8 million new students in government schools. Moreover, Minister for Education and Mines & Minerals Development Syed Sardar Ali Shah has stated that the monitoring system regarding teacher attendance in Sindh is being made more effective. He warned that strict action will be taken against teachers who are absent and do not teach students. The
Deploring that 27 percent of people refused to get their children vaccinated against polio on the first day of a special fractional Inactivated Polio Vaccine (fIPV) drive in Karachi on 15 August 2024, Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) officials vowed on 16-August-2024 that they would manage to convince parents and vaccinate over 90 percent of the children with the injectable vaccine for which the latest jet injector technology was being used. “Despite our best efforts,
DADU: As monsoon rains loomed over Pakistan, 14-year-old Shamila and her 13-year-old sister Amina were married off in exchange for money—a decision their parents made to help the family survive the impending threat of floods. “I was happy to hear I was getting married… I thought my life would become easier,” Shamila said after her wedding to a man twice her age, hoping for a more prosperous life. “But I have nothing more. And
‘Under the Blaze’ presents a compelling tale of a child forced to trade his future for perilous conditions Rawalpindi. A child extends his skinny arms to place a warm, rust-coloured brick in a long line of freshly baked blocks laid out to dry under the blistering sun that glares upon the kiln he has been slaving away at since the morning. With six hours already gone by, there are eight more to go and
Rawalpindi. Two suspects who allegedly raped three children in Kallar Syedan area of Rawalpindi police station and his accomplice have been arrested. The accused were charged with rape while filming the indecent act and uploading the videos online. While registering the case the parents of the victim said that the accused named Sikandar had allegedly raped three children and his accomplice Owais, made a video that he caused to go viral by uploading them