PESHAWAR: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Peshawar on August 4 declared the results of the annual Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations, with around 30 per cent of 10th-grade students and nearly 60 per cent of 9th-grade students remaining unsuccessful. According to the exam result gazette issued by the BISE Peshawar, 95,496 students sat the grade 10 board exam but around 30 per cent of them (27,788) failed to pass it. The
Child Rights in Focus
Karachi Police Arrest 17-Year-Old Relative for Alleged Rape, Murder After Toddler Dies in Qayyumabad
The Karachi police apprehended a 17-year-old suspect over alleged sexual assault after a one-and-a-half-year-old girl died in Qayyumabad on August 5. The first information report (FIR) was registered today at the Defence Police Station under Section 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s father against the suspect — a relative of theirs. The FIR said the complainant received a telephone call from his wife on Tuesday night
Last Sunday at around 11pm, I went to a restaurant about two miles from my home with my wife and children for dinner. As we sat waiting for our meal, two little girls, who appeared to be between 10 and 12 years old, approached our table carrying crunchy Papadom. They politely requested that we buy one. We declined to buy the snacks because we had no desire for them. Is it not an injustice
A PROJECTION that Pakistan’s population could reach 400m by 2040 should not be treated as another dramatic number to be quoted at ceremonies and forgotten by the next budget. It is a warning about the size of the state’s future obligations. Every additional child will need vaccination, nutrition, schooling, safe water, transport and, eventually, work. Yet the present system already fails millions on each count. The issue, therefore, is not that families are having
PARENTS want the very best for their children. That is never in question. But wanting the best and knowing what the best is are two different things, and in the early years of a child’s life, the impact of that difference can have consequences that are difficult to undo. In my work with families across Pakistan, I encounter the same hesitation. Structured early learning, particularly before the age of four, is seen as optional.
LAHORE: An alleged chronic drug addict was arrested after reportedly attacking and injuring his wife and three daughters in the Kahna area here on August 2. The police identified the suspect as Irfan and lodged a case against him. According to initial police reports, the suspect, on the day of the incident, asked his wife to arrange some money for him for drugs. When she refused, he allegedly returned with a dagger and injured
TAXILA: The lives and safety of more than 80 children, most of them girls, enrolled at Government Boys Primary School on the outskirts of Taxila are said to be at risk due to excessive excavation around the school by a private housing society, cutting off safe access to the campus and raising fears of a serious accident. A visit by this correspondent to the school in Dhoke Syedo found deep ditches dug around the
MANSEHRA: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Department has sought the help of the deputy commissioner and law-enforcement agencies to reopen schools forcibly shut by landowners who had applied for lower-grade posts but were not appointed across the district. “As educational institutions have reopened for the new academic session after summer vacation, candidates who could not be appointed forcibly shut down around 20 schools in Siren and Konsh valleys and other parts of Mansehra, depriving students
KARACHI: International Breastfeeding Week 2026 commenced with an important discussion on the challenges faced by working mothers, especially journalist mothers who are breastfeeding, at a seminar organised by the Karachi Press Club in collaboration with Unicef on Saturday. One’s heart went out to the mothers who shared the challenges they faced or still are facing balancing work with motherhood. Mariam Hassan, young mother of a toddler and an infant, said that her baby girl
BAHAWALNAGAR: The investigative committee, formed after the death of a five-year-old child at the Minchinabad THQ Hospital three days ago, has suspended two junior technicians for negligence under the Peeda Act, while the THQ’s medical superintendent (MS) has also been removed. The family of the child had claimed that on June 30 five-year-old Mohsin, who had been brought to the THQ Hospital for a routine check-up, died as a result of staff negligence after an untrained
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) has removed an office objection to a petition challenging the legality of the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2026, which sets 18 years as the minimum age for marriage in the country’s most populous province. The office had objected to the plea on the ground that the petitioner had originally challenged the ordinance, whereas it had since been passed by the provincial assembly and enacted into law. Following
LAHORE: Lahore DIG (Investigation) Zeeshan Raza claimed on July 31 that the police have solved the mystery surrounding the deaths of a US national woman and her three children in a house in a private housing society in Lahore. US national Aleena (40) and her three children — Rehan (16), Aresha (11), and Arsal (6) — were found dead from suspected poisoning in their rented house in Valencia Town under mysterious circumstances on July