89.9% of Sindh’s schools only offer primary education
HYDERABAD:January 22:When Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari compares the performance of his party’s Sindh government with the provincial governments in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), he takes pride in the Sindh health department’s accomplishments. But, the education sector is noticeably absent from his praise when Bilawal appeals to voters in his speeches to judge the PPP’s services in the health sector against Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz’s metro buses in Punjab and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s tree plantation in K-P.
Perhaps the reason is that he realises that the education department has not fared well enough to render a sense of achievement. And the recently launched annual schools census report for year 2016-17 explains this discontent.
The 214-page report titled ‘Sindh Education Profile’ was launched at an event in Karachi this week by the provincial education department. It encompasses an array of parameters assessing academic standard, enrollment and a range of facilities.
Education: a solution for Pakistan
One of the many interesting features of the report is the statistics of the number of government schools, which show a yawning variance from the primary to the higher secondary levels. According to the census, 38,132, or 89.9%, of the total 42,383 schools in the province provide only primary education.
The middle and elementary schools, which provide education beyond primary level, amount to only 6% of the primary schools at 2,241. There are 1,719 secondary schools and 291 higher secondary institutions.
Hyderabad region
With an exception of Hyderabad district where around 19% government schools offer middle to secondary education, the percentage in the remaining eight districts in the division varies from a meager 4% to 11%. Badin district, with 2,934 government schools, has the highest number in the division. But, against its 2,763 primary schools only 101 offer middle and elementary education, 60 secondary and 10 higher secondary.
Similarly, out of 1,821 schools in Dadu district, 1,679 are primary while only 57 offer middle, 70 secondary and 15 higher secondary education. Among Sujawal district’s 1,390 schools, only 30 offer middle, 18 secondary and six higher secondary education while the remaining 1,336 are primary schools.
For the students in the neighbouring Thatta district, prospects for acquiring middle to higher secondary education are no better than in Sujawal. As many as 1,195 of the 1,282 government schools in the district are limited to primary level of education. Only 42 offer middle, 38 secondary and seven higher secondary education.
Reflecting a direct effect of the huge difference, the census shows that against 176,000 students at the primary level in Dadu, only over 43,000 are admitted in classes up to 10 and 3,600 others to the college level. Likewise, against 157,270 students enrolled in the primary schools of Badin, the combined strength of students in the upper level schools, including college, stands at less than 38,000.
As many as 61,580 students are enrolled in primary schools in Sujawal and 63,758 in Thatta. In comparison there are just 9,305 and 12,458 students in classes six to 10 and 1,148 and 1,087 in college respectively in the two districts.The news.
