Lacking urgency: Educationists flay govt for failure to enact Article 25-A
By Asad Zia
Published: November 27, 2014
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| Civil society organisations and the education department prepared a draft bill for free and compulsory education in the province. |
PESHAWAR: Education activists expressed concern over the four-year delay in enacting Article 25-A and urged the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly to approve the draft bill at the earliest.
During a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, activists said after the 18th Amendment, civil society organisations and the education department prepared a draft bill for free and compulsory education in the province. However, both the previous Awami National Party (ANP) regime and the current Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) failed to turn the bill into a law.
They pointed out 2.5 million children across the province were out of school and claimed the current government had not constructed a single school for them.
Addressing the audience, SPARC Regional Manager Jehanzaib Khan said although the government declared an education emergency in K-P, children lacked basic facilities and teachers at schools. “If there are no teachers or facilities, how can the children get an education,” he questioned.
ActionAid representative Aliya Rashid said the other three provinces enacted the law for free and compulsory education, while the draft had been pending before K-P lawmakers for the last four years. She said the previous government had done some work in this regard, but the current regime remained “motionless”. Rashid urged a swift approval of the draft bill for the 2.5 million out-of-school children in K-P.
“The government must enact the bill which will by law force parents to send their children to school,” said Advocate Noor Alam Khan. Financial constraints make parents send their children to madrassahs instead of schools, which are expensive, he added. This will force their hand, said Noor Alam.
Qaumi Watan Party MPA Miraj Humayun Khan stressed the government had doubled the education budget, but only spent Rs2 billion on education development. She said the province required 1,250 more schools, with five teachers per institute, to meet the needs of out-of-school children. However, the government claimed it lacked the resources to build schools in such large numbers, she noted.
ANP MPA Syed Jafar Shah said a draft bill was made at the end of the previous government, but could not be passed due to the lack of time. According to Shah, his party’s rule saw “record-breaking work” in the field of education.
He said the incumbent government had plenty of resources, but lacked political will due to which education was ignored.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2014.
source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/798385/lacking-urgency-educationists-flay-govt-for-failure-to-enact-article-25-a/
