New law to ensure free books, uniforms in Pakistan school

The Pakistani government is working on a bill that will ensure the provision of free books along with stationary and uniforms to the children, a ruling party lawmaker said today.
"We are working on a bill that will ensure the provision of uniforms and stationery along with free textbooks to the children," said Romina Khurshid of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), adding, the proposed bill would be tabled in the National Assembly soon.
She was speaking at a seminar organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here yesterday.
The seminar, titled 'Making Quality Education Accessible in Pakistan - A Social Accountability Perspective' reflected upon SDPI's research on status of primary and secondary education in selected areas.

According to the organisation's research, some of the reasons behind rampant dropouts and non-enrolment in the schools was lack of awareness about the importance of education, centralisation of powers with district education authorities and the ability of teachers to deliver quality education at public schools.
Khurshid said that provision of quality education at public schools also depended a lot on the recruitment of well-educated and qualified teachers.
Emphasising the importance of education, she said that the government was devising polices that may provide quality education to the children of Pakistan.
Pakistan still faces the uphill task of eradicating illiteracy and according to the official statistics released by the Federal Education Ministry of Pakistan, the overall literacy rate in the country is 46 per cent, while only 26 per cent of girls are literate. In terms of literacy, Pakistan ranks at 113th position among 120 countries of the world.