Special Report: 12.9 Million Forsaken Dreams

Pakistan has one of the worst dropout rates at the primary school level in the world; more than 41% children do not make it to lower secondary (ages 11-14), a number that reaches up to a worrying 73% for the poorest parts of the country (PDER 2016). Why do 12.9 million children drop out before lower secondary and where do they end up once out of school? In this special two part series I will attempt to answer these and other questions related to drop-outs and explain how Khud is striving to keep children in school.  

Courtesy: Dawn.com

It is important to note that the dropout rate flattens drastically as we move from lower secondary/middle school level to high school, making it evident that something specific to the primary-middle school boundary may be contributing to such high rates.

This can be attributed to the fact that as children approach the end of primary school (ages 11-14) they are old enough by traditional standards to help with chores and in some extreme cases even get married. Coupled with poor learning outcomes of low cost public or private schooling, parents don’t see much utility in keeping children in school.

Pakistani children suffer from severe learning poverty i.e. the inability to read and understand simple texts by age 10, only 18% fifth graders can read and understand a sentence in a local language (ASER 2019).  This inefficiency of the schooling system shapes parents’ perception about the benefits of education as they usually see no marked difference in their child’s academic progress which leads them towards making a dropout decision. According to the Pakistan District Education Ranking, a “lack of understanding of the benefit of education” is one of the four major reasons why children are taken out of school

Once the children are out of school a vast majority is incorporated in the informal economy as child laborers, either as extra help in family occupations or paid apprenticeships in businesses. 12.5 million Children between the ages of 10 to 14 years work as laborers in Pakistan and this number excludes those who provide unpaid labor in everyday household chores (PLFS 2018).  In addition to this a prevalent practice especially in the case of young girls is to take them out of school to marry them in their early teens, 18% girls in the country are married before their 18th birthday and 4% are married even before their 15th birthday (GirlsnotBrides.org).

Courtesy: The News on Sunday

These worrying trends raise grave concerns about both the demand-side (family structures, poverty etc.) and supply-side (schooling infrastructure, learning outcomes) factors of the education system in the country. In the next part we will understand how Khud leverages its dynamic digital curriculum to address issues on both ends to keep children learning and in school.