Voice Of Children

Islamabad: Two children were killed and 13 others were injured when a bomb went off near the home of a tribal elder in the restive Khyber tribal region of northwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.

The bomb was detonated by remote control as a group of people were leaving the home of tribal elder Malik Rasool Jan Shinwari at Landi Kotal in Khyber Agency. 
 The people had gathered at his residence for a jirga or tribal council, officials said.

Personnel from the Khassadar Force took 15 injured people to a nearby hospital, where a young boy and girl succumbed to their injuries.

Five of the wounded, who were in a serious condition, were shifted to a hospital in Peshawar.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Creation and application of literacy, education and knowledge through higher education are not one and the same thing. Literacy in Pakistan amounts to someone’s being able to read a newspaper and write a simple letter in a language. More focused on the adult population, Pakistan falls significantly behind many countries in literacy, and will not be able to achieve the MDG of 100 percent literacy by 2015. In the last five years, literacy has risen by only 3 percent to 58 percent, and therefore will probably reach 60 percent by 2015. The NCHD, which has now been devolved, failed to achieve the MDG in education. The number of adult illiterates is actually rising.

Education, which falls within the jurisdiction of the provincial governments, is in a sorry state of affairs in Pakistan. HDI 2011 ranks Pakistan 145 (out of 187 countries), showing gross enrolment ratios for primary and secondary education at 85 percent and 33.5 percent, respectively. The Education for All (EFA) Development Index ranks Pakistan at 118 out of 129 countries. Similarly, the Prosperity Index ranks Pakistan at 105 out of 110 countries in the education category.

The Pakistan Education Task Force 2010 reports that one-third of primary age children are not in school. It also reports that 35 percent of those children who do attend school and make it to grade 3 cannot do single-digit subtraction. On the other hand, a recent study by AKU IED found that around 70 percent of teachers teach for only 15 minutes in a 35-minute period, and 10 percent teach for less than five minutes. The Annual Status of Education Report 2010 shows drastic reduction in school enrolment from 16.7 percent in class 1 to 3.3 percent in class 10, and that more than half the children surveyed could not read even Urdu or a local language properly. About 4,000 “ghost schools” exist in Sindh alone.

Enrolment figures according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2010-11 show about 19 million are enrolled in primary schools, 5.2 million in secondary schools, 2.6 million in SSC and 1.2 million in HSSC. Out of 600,000 passing HSSC, only about 100,000 enter universities and 180,000 enter degree colleges, while another 200,000 are admitted as private students and distance students. There are just not enough room at schools, colleges and universities!

The only real difference is in the domain of higher education. Despite scarcity of funding, universities and campuses have opened in far-flung areas and new academic programmes and technologies have been introduced. Over 1,400 HEC scholars have completed their PhDs and joined the universities. Also, Pakistan’s share of research publications worldwide has gone up three-folds in the last eight years, which is quite an achievement. Eleven accreditation councils are functioning and focusing on improved curriculum, while 85 quality enhancement cells established at the universities are working to improve quality of education. Universities are being ranked for the first time, and as a result of these reforms, two universities are now among the top 300 technology universities of the world.

Accessibility to higher education in Pakistan for age-group 17-23 is still among the lowest in the world, about 7.8 percent. This is lower than Ghana’s at 9 percent and Cameroon’s 11 percent. South Korea enjoys among the highest accessibility at 98 percent, Finland at 94 percent and Israel at 60 percent. Among other countries having higher accessibilities are Turkey (38 percent), Iran (36 percent), Malaysia (32 percent) and Indonesia (21 percent). India is at 15 percent and increasing due to its heavy funding of higher-education. Even though the Pakistan Education Policy 2009 plans to increase accessibility to 10 percent by 2015, and to 15 percent by 2020, the government has reduced HEC funding.

Pakistan spends only 1.7 percent of GDP on education, or less than half of what Vietnam‚ Malaysia‚ Thailand‚ and Indonesia spend, respectively. Only six countries in the world spend less than Pakistan does on education. Within this already reduced pie for education, only 0.22 percent of the GDP (about 13 percent of the total education spending) goes to higher education. Pakistan’s commitment to the higher education sector was scaled back by 10 percent this year while India has raised its higher-education budget by 25 percent. This reduction in the HEC budget was in addition to the 40 percent cut imposed last year.

India is spending 3.5 percent of its GDP on education, with 1.03 percent, or $11.5 billion, on higher education alone. This federal allocation through the UGC is in addition to the states financially supporting university budgets, and in some cases providing up to 80 percent of the university budgets. Nine new prestigious IITs have been established in the last three years in addition to the seven original ones.

India’s political leadership is sending out all the right signals. India has a Knowledge Commission headed by a world-renowned expert serving as an adviser to the Prime Minister; a ministry of human resource development, and a strong and centralized UGC. Recently, the Indian cabinet approved setting up the National Commission on Higher Education and Research (NCHER), following the HEC Pakistan model.

Pakistan must invest foremost in education with renewed vigour. The lower education must focus on improving quality, while the HEC must be supported to raise Pakistan’s knowledge workers’ level to world standards. Any other direction will be suicidal for Pakistan’s education. 
The writer is chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission. Email: jlaghari@hec. gov.pk

It gives my soul an exquisite pain when I see the children of school going age looking carefully and thoroughly in the garbage to find something to eat in this wild winter mornings when the inclement cold is at its acme. These children don't have the slightest inkling how profusely the rulers of their land are spending the money on themselves from the national kitty. According to a report, the daily expenditure of the prime minister is to the tune of 13 lakh Rupees and the daily expenses of the President House are to the tune of 14 lakh Rupees. Since it is beyond the realms of possibility that our present rulers would ever think about eliminating poverty from the country, their must be some organization be it national or international who should initiate some commendable steps to wipe away abject poverty from Pakistan. Let the rulers keep aggrandizing themselves as they are beyond reproach. It’s useless to criticize them.
MUBUSHAR ALI SULEHRIA,

By Hasnaat Malik

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) has sought report from the provincial governments and District Coordination Officers (DCO) to submit report on the registration of illegitimate children within two weeks.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, heard the application of Abdul Sattar Edhi, who has requested the SC to devise a legal strategy to resolve the sensitive and complex issue of registering children of unknown parentage to enable them to live their lives with dignity and respect.

Edhi has approached the SC to give these children an identity independent of a legally mandated guardian. He has also cited in the application that the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) had refused to register a minor and informed his daughter Kubra that the registration process could not be initiated without the child’s guardian.

During the hearing, the counsel for NADRA, Afnan Karim Kundi submitted that provincial governments had already framed the rules regarding the registration of illegitimate children. He said that DCOs were implementing these rules in the provinces.

CJP observed that this is a very sensitive and important issue, which needed to be heard in details. The court adjourned the hearing for two weeks.

Earlier, the court had asked the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) and Justice (retd) Khalilur Rehman Ramday for their opinion on registering children with unknown parentage in light of Shariah. Justice (retd) Ramday has suggested; “The NADRA and learned Guardians Judges in the country could be directed to deal with the matter of guardianship of children of unknown parentage expeditiously and without causing any delay or inconvenience, which avoidable, whenever approached for the purpose.” He also suggested implementing 1955 Act regarding the matter.

 —Mehboob Qadir
One of the world’s most accomplished civilisations evolved here and had the privilege of an equal place of honour with other great civilisations. It imbibed an enormous sense of worth and responsibility in our popular subconscious

Things in and around Pakistan are becoming particularly menacing at an alarming pace. The gathering clouds look ominous. I do not know what in the heavens did we do to deserve men like Osama bin Laden (OBL), Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the whole lot of their murderous band? Why men like Fazlullah, Muslim Khan, Hakeemullah Mehsud, the Haqqanis and their throat-slitting ilk were inflicted upon us? Why Laal Masjid (Red Mosque), Damadola, Waziristan, Mumtaz Qadri and other breeders of suicide madness and homicide had to be nailed into our land? Why should history have thrust us into the deadly neighbourhood of a perpetually warring country like Afghanistan? What could not be done by them, we and our successive leaderships did to ourselves.

Look at the enormity of damage all these vipers in our backyard have done to our country and the people. Our intellectual and physical growth has been stunted. Our so very well adjusted belief canvas has been vengefully besmeared. Our psyche has been mauled down to a pathetic baseness. We have long since forgotten the mannerisms of a self-respecting friendly nation who facilitates and not impedes the neighbourhood. We are at war with ourselves and direly threatened by others. We are used like a Kleenex convenience and then discarded into the dustbins of political expedience by friends and foes alike without ever blinking an eye. The grace of positivity and helpfulness has been withdrawn from us lest we degrade them too. The capacity to be thankful for a favour done, express regret gracefully for a wrong committed or accept courtesy as a matter of natural goodness is becoming more and more scarce among us — just like a pack of wolves. The whole environment seems to be full of despair, fear and frustration. Why should it all happen to us?

If it was within one’s power, one would indict OBL and Zawahiri of having subverted Islam and committing the cardinal sin of injecting their particular venom into people’s faith. Banish Fazlullah, Hakeemullah, Mangal Bagh, Mullah Omar and their followers forever from our country. If one could, one would root out with a deep plough all the nurseries of sectarian militancy and breeders of terrorism from Pakistan and use the strongest of pesticides to destroy the last of their larvae. We let them be and now we will have to root them out ourselves. These stem-boring pests are destroying our future. We must go down fighting and not cringe behind our doors and let the odorous bandits rule the streets. The courageous people of a village in Charsadda and those in Lower Dir and Matani had shown how to beat the bullying militants. Let’s all stand up and be counted. Let’s fight for our children, our liberty, our way of life and above all our right to live, believe and pray.

Public accusations by senior US officials of our ‘complicity’ with their Afghan nemesis and specifically with those who attacked the US embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul are unprecedentedly direct. There have been threats of ‘all options being on the table’ referring to military action against Pakistan. An international campaign has been unleashed against Pakistan. We are required to be reduced to nothingness and the chorus is becoming louder and louder. See how this suave trade union of statesmen, diplomats, academicians/intellectuals/researchers, journalists/writers and so-called ‘conscientious citizens’ in the west in league with their fellows in other interest centres the world over operate. They demonise or eulogise individuals and entities at leisure to serve a particular set of interests. What was that bogey about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)? Where have those WMDs evaporated and who has ever apologised and compensated the Iraqis for the colossal losses and suffering as a result of the subsequent invasion?

Unfortunately, the Americans have an endless capacity to shoot themselves in their own foot. They undermine their friends and underestimate their foes alike and end up losing both. Repeatedly they have failed to understand that not everything can be done through pressure and purchase. What is invaluable is in-depth knowledge of history, political sagacity and wisdom, which are the more powerful tools of statecraft. What is that inexplicable fog that blinds them to the collective sentiment of a whole people to what they want to impose upon them? Why do they want to play their own terrible poverty of civilisational heritage by disregarding what other nations and regions had for thousands of years? They should know they are torching down humanity no less than Attila the Hun and his Golden Horde. Their paranoid arrogance is just not understandable. A famous Arabian proverb applies: “The best response to insolence is silence,” but perhaps that works among a different breed of people who have a definite sense of worth. However, there is a complex system of causes that keeps the acrimony towards the US at such a destructive level among the Pakistanis.

It needs to be understood that veiled and now open US threats, grudging admission of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts and a pervasive disregard for Pakistan’s difficulties, losses and sovereignty by almost all the spokesmen in the US administration and Pentagon/military continue to confirm dark popular apprehensions that:

a. Pakistan and its people’s sentiments, suffering and losses on the score of the war on terror do not matter much except as a convenience to the US. The seeping realisation of slowly being reduced to nothingness is telling.

b. Pakistanis are not equal or allies but mercenaries for hire and are paid to fight. This unacceptable status is eating into an already scanty goodwill; that a dole-out of a few billion dollars is enough to keep their clamour down.

c. Proxy regimes whether elected or otherwise propped up in Pakistan through undisguised manipulation by the US foremen implement a foreign agenda. That mostly runs contrary to the popular wishes and national interest. Pakistanis are left to suffer endlessly the consequences of the misrule of these interventions.

e. US friendship is self-interest based and has an unenviable history of pulling out at the time of our need. Therefore, it will leave Pakistan in the lurch this time also. All our killed and wounded, toil and turmoil will be dumped by the wayside. We will be trashed once again.

Interplay of these apprehensions and the apathy of US approaches over the years have created deep divisions in Pakistani society and politics, both vertically and horizontally. Disbelief, a sense of helplessness to shape their future and alienation between the state and the people exist. This state of affairs can have grave consequences for the country and the region. Under such implosive situations, state systems tend to crash and national boundaries are invariably redrawn with much attendant devastation. The State Department gurus should be able to understand what scale of chaos would follow in the region if that happens.

After all, we have lived here since thousands of years in near perfect harmony and peace amongst diverse races and religions. No one ever persecuted anyone for his/her creed, caste or race. There was no inquest to intern, deprive or annihilate whole communities. Since ancient times we have been hosts to one of the world’s wealthiest highways for trade, commerce and talented men and women to prosper between the continents and regions. We have been the keepers of the landward flank of the world’s spice and frankincense sea lanes passing through the Indian Ocean. One of the world’s most accomplished civilisations evolved here and had the privilege of an equal place of honour with other great civilisations. It imbibed an enormous sense of worth and responsibility in our popular subconscious. Then how come we have degenerated to such unworthiness that other nations find it difficult to deal honourably and equally with us?

We can and are still capable of reclaiming a part of our lost nobility of thought, our ancient national poise and sanity, and a modicum of responsibility and promise, but only if we are rid of these barbarians, only if we are treated with a little more respect and circumspection, only if we are allowed to evolve out of our dormancy and delirium in our indigenous and time-tested manner, only if our people’s collective wisdom is neither subverted nor ridiculed. The wish list is long and the storm is already gathering on the horizon.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com

The first consists of children from communities affected by armed conflict as a result of direct hostilities against them and their families. These children see their schools targeted, they are often displaced because of the conflict. Some lose contact with their families and others are orphaned. Then, there are children used as soldiers or suicide bombers.
This year alone has seen, among other incidents, the kidnapping of 27 children from Bajaur Agency by Afghan Taliban, the attack by the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) on a school van near Peshawar killing five children, the death of a child in Karachi following a blast targeting the house of the chief of the CID`s anti-terror force.
The Taliban have set conditions for freeing the Bajaur children and demanded that the government release those languishing in various prisons, stop instigating tribesmen to form anti-Taliban lashkars and disband such `peace committees` in Bajaur. The Peshawar attack was termed a lesson for the concerned village that had formed a lashkar to fight the Taliban. Although it has been months since the kidnapping of the Bajaur boys, no concrete steps have been taken by the government for their release. While some of the boys have escaped, a number of helpless parents still await the return of their sons. In the past, incidents such as these would have been settled by local tribal leaders on both sides of the border. However, the ongoing conflict has seen the murder of a prominent Mamond tribal leader from Bajaur who crossed the border to visit his relatives. Not many dare to cross the border now.
In a situation where the government and military are backing private lashkars in the fight against the Taliban, they should also be able to support local communities and tribes in material terms, as they are being brought into direct conflict with the terrorists. Why have the Mamonds in Bajaur been left alone when their children have been kidnapped as punishment for siding with the government?
Similarly, a number of children have been arrested in the past few years as a result of the so-called war on terror and are in different prisons of the country, and even in Afghanistan. One case is that of 14-year-old Hameedullah Khan who was picked up in July 2008 and handed over to the Americans as a terrorist according to an international NGO Reprieve.
Khan is in the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. Geneva Convention IV guarantees special care for children, but it is Additional Protocol I that lays down the principle of special protection: “Children shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault. The parties to the conflict shall provide them with the care and aid they require, whether because of their age or for any other reason.” This principle also applies to non-international armed conflict.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the involvement of children in armed conflict, adopted on May 25, 2000, generally strengthens protection for children in armed conflict. It states that the state parties must take all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not reached the age of 18 years do not take direct part in hostilities.
It prohibits compulsory recruitment into the armed forces of persons under 18 and directs that armed groups, distinct from the national armed forces, should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities those under 18, and that governments must take legal measures to prohibit and criminalise such practices. Pakistan has signed but has still to ratify the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
Although children are being recruited by armed groups and are also being used as suicide bombers, there is no visible action on the part of the government or concerned NGOs to tackle the issue despite the fact that rehabilitation of child soldiers is part of the national plan of action for children.
The issue of child soldiers needs to be tackled skilfully, taking into account the contributing factors of how children are lured into such a dangerous game. Both the government and NGOs should devise their strategies to protect children who are being used. The government should enact legislation to outlaw the recruitment/membership of children by armed groups and penalise those who facilitate such recruitment/membership.
A rehabilitation programme should also be started for detained child soldiers and include those who were sent to Afghanistan in the past to take part in the war against the US. NGOs should focus their energies on raising awareness about the negative impact on children of their use as soldiers.
Furthermore, there must be training programmes for officials of the armed forces and law-enforcement agencies on national and international legal instruments concerning the protection of children in armed conflicts. Free and compulsory primary education is yet another effective method to prevent the menace in future on a sustainable basis.
Finally, efforts should also be made for the rehabilitation and reintegration into society of those children directly affected by the armed conflict, who have lost family members. These should include child-headed households. Meanwhile, the safe and early release of children kidnapped by the Afghan Taliban should be prioritised and both federal and provincial governments should use their influence and clout in this regard.
arshad mahmood
The writer is executive director of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child.
DAWN

Karachi—Emirates, one of the fastest growing international airlines, provided an unforgettable experience for orphans at Karachi’s Edhi Village Apna Ghar when it brought a number of star cricketers to the facility to host a coaching clinic.

The children were thrilled as Yasir Hameed, Zulqarnain Haider, Shakil Ansar and Sajjad Hussain– players for Quaid-e-Azam Trophy finalists Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) – signed autographs and posed for pictures.

The children also had the opportunity to ask the players – who have all played at international level - about their lives as professional cricketers. In addition, the youngsters bowled deliveries to their special guests and tried batting against them, while staff and fellow residents at the home, which houses 200 children, cheered from the sidelines.

“Interacting with these children and experiencing their excitement first hand is a gratifying feeling. Knowing that you may be able to make a difference to their lives is the reason I got involved with the sport in the first place,” said ZTBL player Yasir Hameed.

“Through this great initiative undertaken by Emirates we really enjoyed connecting with the children and were able to offer our advice on techniques as well as what a cricketing career entails. Their passion inspired us,” added Hameed.

“More so than celebrities these children require mentors,” said, Ahmed Edhi, Assistant Zonal in-charge Edhi Foundation, which is a non-profit organization providing social services for orphans and abused women throughout Pakistan.

“They are passionate about cricket but have no guidance or knowledge on the way forward to pursue a cricketing career. We are grateful to Emirates for bringing these cricketers to the children as they have success stories of their own to tell and these stories can not only inspire the children but guide them as well.”

The airline has a long history of supporting cricket through its various sponsorships across the globe. As part of Emirates’ collaboration with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the Quaid-e-Azam trophy was the second event in a series of tournaments that will be sponsored by the airline. Following the recent National T20 Tournament, it will also be supporting the upcoming Pentagular Cricket Cup 2011-12, OneDay Cricket Cup 2011-12 and Super 8 T20 Cricket Cup 2012.

“Our sponsorship of domestic cricket is not limited to supporting tournaments. We aim to extend our support by providing opportunities such as this to children who can benefit from meeting positive role models like the ZTBL players who visited the Edhi Village,” said Badr Abbas, Emirates’ Vice President, Pakistan & Afghanistan. “Children look up to cricket players and hopefully this activity will not only help them develop their cricket skills, but also inspire them on a personal level,” added Abbas.

Some popular perceptions, that are persisting in certain circles in Pakistan, are that private schools only work for the better off, work for profits only and make a lot of profits, work in urban areas mainly, but do provide better education for the money that they charge. Although some of these perceptions have a degree of truth to them, things are changing quite rapidly in the sector and, equally importantly, these perceptions need to be contextualised as well.

There are about 55,000-odd private schools and some 8 million school-going children in Pakistan that go to private schools. This is not a small sector anymore. Most of these 55,000 schools are small, local, low-fee private schools (LFPS) that charge up to Rs 500 per month, and many of them charge less than Rs 300 a month, while the elite private schools, charging thousands of rupees a month are not more than a few thousand. This reflects market realities as well. The elite schools cater to the middle and higher income brackets, while the LFPS cater to the lower and lower-middle income groups.

It is true that the very poor do not go to private schools in as large a number as they do to public schools, but private school enrolment now does span the entire income spectrum. These schools are also spread over the urban and rural landscape, though it is true they are concentrated in places where population density is higher (urban areas, or rural areas of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and where the supply of educated females is present. Rural Balochistan and Sindh do not have many private schools.

In terms of profits, while private schools charge money for providing the service, and education is a business for them, most of the LFPS do not make a lot of money. They cannot charge a lot to the market they cater to and hence their net returns are not very high. Imagine a class of 30 students being charged Rs 200 a child on average. The school will have gross revenue of Rs 6,000 from this class or section. They have to pay for the teacher, the utilities and for other overheads (rent) out of this revenue. The net income of the school owner might not be much. Many schools try to tie markets (sell uniforms or books) and/or charge other fees (admission fee, examination fee, etc) but these are limited in LFPS. So, the perception of large profits, for LFPS, is incorrect, and most of them might be making only ordinary returns. The perception, though, holds for schools charging higher fees.

There are many surveys that show that on average children from private schools, even LFPS, do better than children from public schools in standardised tests, and across most subjects, even after controlling for a host of factors such as parental income, education and so on, but there is substantial variation in quality in both types of schools, and overall, the quality of education, in both type of schools is very poor. On an absolute quality basis, when we test children against what they should know at a certain age in mathematics and languages, we find that most children are way behind where they should be. So both types of schools are failing our children and failing us, but the children in public schools, on average, are doing worse than the private school children.

On the cost side private school costs, per child, are much lower than public school costs, but most LFPS are not regulated, do not face the salary related, employee related, tax related and other labour/regulatory structures that public schools live under. So, it is unclear how much of the cost differential is driven by efficiency and how much of it is due to structural differences. This needs more investigation.

The context above should help in deepening our understanding of the perceptions about private/public education. Pakistani policymakers have encouraged private education over the last couple of decades and it has expanded significantly to the point where it caters to some 8 million children now. It has expanded much faster than the government has been able to expand the public sector. And has the potential to continue to expand.

Sadly, by design and default, the government has also taken this expansion as an excuse for keeping its commitment to education low, and in the process there have been negative consequences on public schools as well: exit of children from middle and higher income groups from public schools and concurrent reduction in government’s willingness to reform public school system. And it has also led the debate, about private and public, in the wrong direction.

We want all children in Pakistan to have access to quality education: under Article 25A of our constitution, it is our constitutional obligation to provide for this. The real issue is how is this objective to be achieved? We have decided that we will do this through government schools as well as private schools. The word ‘private’ has connotations that are not appropriate for the context. A school where our children go will never be private space of the entrepreneur. We are not going to entrust our children to any individual or company. We have the right to not only know what is being taught there and how, we, as a society, have a right to regulate and monitor it.

Society has certain objectives and expectations regarding education and these need to be implemented and monitored irrespective of the ownership and/or management structure of school. If the quality of education is poor, irrespective of school type, we, as a society, need to work on improving it. The best way to improve private sector quality is by improving quality of provision in the public sector: since private sector has to compete, and charges money, it will have to deliver better quality than the free alternative.

But reforming public sector has been difficult, largely due to lack of incentives for such reforms. But that does not mean the society should not be looking into how private school quality should be improved to some minimum threshold. The nature of the intervention would be different for LFPS and elite schools as LFPS have little fiscal space. Accordingly, from grants to loans, we will have to develop all sorts of products and instruments that can provide access to finance for different types of schools. We will take up the issue of appropriate products/instruments in a later article.

Educational quality is poor in Pakistan, for most schools. We need to fix that, irrespective of whether the school is owned/run by government or not. The instruments for doing that will vary according to the type of school, the group it caters to, and so on, but the facts of their ownership/management, private, for-profit, public or not-for-profit, do not matter for this argument.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Adviser at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at fbari@sorosny.org

PAKISTAN has recently passed laws that greatly limit child labour and indentured servitude, but those laws are universally ignored. Some 11 million children, aged four to 14, keep the country’s factories operating, often working in brutal and squalid conditions.
No two negotiations for the sale of a child are alike, but all are based on the deceit that parties involved have the best interests
of the child at heart.
Among all the four provinces, Punjab is considered to be having greater literacy rate but about 35 million people are illiterate at present in Punjab.
Educational standards and measurements are very much low in most of the parts of Pakistan.
Most of the educational crises in Pakistan are known because of language discrimination.
In our private sector schools, subjects are taught in English while Urdu is our mother tongue. In this sense Urdu becomes neglected.
A very few students get access to secondary level education; most of them end up at the primary level. Also, most children cannot complete their secondary education due to poverty.
Parents force their children to work. Researches show that the child labour rate in Pakistan is higher amongst other Asian countries. Most of the girls in Pakistan are illiterate compared to boys.
The government needs to focus on the education crisis in Pakistan. A number of government schools remain closed round the year due to negligence: there are not enough teachers, and buildings are also in a much poor condition.
In addition, the educational system of the country must be reshaped and restructured according to national development goals.
Orphans and other deserving children must be helped financially and given a chance at schools. It is also essential to eliminate child labour.
ANAM HAYAT
Islamabad
DAWN

ome analysts keep arguing that since private sector schools compete with each other, the competitive pressure would start improving quality. But that is a misunderstanding of competition

Some eight million children now go to private schools, about 55,000 of them, across Pakistan. Where a few thousand of these schools are elite, high fee schools, and a few thousand more are run by NGOs, most are of the low fee for-profit type. They are now spread across the country and this has not been by accident: the state has been encouraging them for more than two decades now.

Examination results show that where private school children do better than public school children in standardised tests, children from both types of schools perform very poorly overall. The quality of education in Pakistan, overall, is quite poor.

The question for us, as a society is, how do we improve the quality of education and ensure that as per our commitment in Article 25A of the constitution, every child has access to free and compulsory education of some minimum quality. It does not matter whether these children go to private schools or public, it is the responsibility of the state to ensure children are getting the kind of education society wants to impart to its children.

We have discussed the issue of reforms in public schools a number of times. Here we want to talk of private schools. It should be mentioned, though, that we do think that improving quality of schooling in the public sector would be a very good way of putting competitive pressure for improvements in the private sector.

One way of classifying private sector schools is by the tuition fee that they charge. This reflects the income group that the school is targeting and serving. Private schools tuitions range from less than Rs 100 per child per month to many thousands. But the bulk of the schools, called Low Fee Private Schools (LFPS) fall in the Rs 100-500 range. The lower end of spectrum clearly does not have a lot of revenues. If a school charges Rs 200 per child, and has 30 students to a class, it makes Rs 6,000 per class. The school has to pay the teacher, pay for all other expenses including utilities and rent, and then make some profit for the owner. Of course schools charging thousands make much bigger profits.

There are a number of questions that arise here. There is a lot of pressure on the LFPS to keep expenses low. This makes them hire less qualified teachers, with less experience and less training as well. It is no surprise that quality gets compromised. That the LFPS do a slightly better job than the average government school is clearly no comfort. Some analysts keep arguing that since private sector schools compete with each other, the competitive pressure would start improving quality. But that is a misunderstanding of competition. If schools are serving markets where raising fees means losing students and so is not an option, the response to competition will show up in further cost cutting and this will be quality reducing. Competition does not always drive quality up, it can become cutthroat too, which might be good in cost terms but can be bad for students and society as we need a certain level of quality in education for our children.

If competition is strong, and there is pressure to cut costs, where teacher salaries is one of the biggest costs for schools, there will be pressure to hire less qualified, less experienced, less trained teachers, and even more importantly, there will be no incentive, and no fiscal space, for either the school or the teacher, to pay for any training either. The owner will not pay for any training as he/she does not have any money or access to finance, and does not see any benefit from it either as he/she cannot raise fees for his/her students, and he/she would also be afraid that as soon as he/she has trained a teacher, the teacher will leave for a better paying job. The teachers in private schools are paid so little that it would be impossible for them to pay for their trainings themselves, and even if they could, it is not clear that they would get any salary hikes after the training so the incentive to pay for any investment in skills gets even more reduced.

The same dynamic would apply for other interventions that improve quality. If the school owners cannot raise fees, why would they want to spend on quality, be it in the form of better infrastructure, better pedagogic tools, or extracurricular activities.

As school fees go up, the situation changes. Profit levels go up, there is more slack in the system, fees can be raised a bit without a major impact on enrollment, and the bigger schools might be able to access other means of financing as well. Here the school could even get some premium for offering quality, but it is likely this only happens at the level where we have what are called ‘elite’ schools in Pakistan.

The question, for us, as a society, is: where we have encouraged and are encouraging opening of private schools, and now that millions of children are enrolled in them, and in mostly low fee low quality schools, should the state/society just let them be or should we insist that they improve quality to some minimum acceptable level? And how should this insistence be structured? Since the very low fee private school model does not have space for getting fees from parents, at least at the moment, can state grants, with conditions on delivery of quality, on what should be taught and how, and on other important outcomes be a way of reaching out? At one point we did have aided schools in India, and the current education foundations have some models too, but these have not been generalised and they have not been made a part of the education departments.

Other private schools, especially with higher fees, might decide to not have as many conditionalities for the funds they need. They can go to commercial banks, micro-finance banks, SME specialised banks or even venture funds for their needs. But in these areas too the state might have a role in encouraging the development of relevant products and loan instruments.

‘Private’ schools have our children in them, and a lot of them. Most of them are run on profit basis, and where we might not like education to be run on a profit basis, it seems we have, as a society, decided to live with this. But if we have, rather than leave these schools to their own designs we should understand constraints these schools work under and see if the state has a role to play in these schools. The state has to ensure that every child is educated up to a minimum standard, and the society has an interest in knowing and monitoring what is being taught. This should be enough of a reason for structuring interventions for private schools, though some of the interventions will be more market based than others.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at fbari@sorosny.org

Benazir Bhutto was named after her paternal aunt, whom her father was very fond of, but had lost when she contracted influenza and had died at boarding school in Pune. Benazir was born on June 21, 1953, and, as reported, was very ‘pink’ at birth thereby acquiring the alias “Pinky” from her close family members. She was the eldest of four children.
According to historian Stanley Wolpert, in Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, the baby Benazir was almost six months old when her father first saw her, for Begum Nusrat Bhutto had returned to Karachi, whilst Bhutto Sahib was pursuing his fledgling career as a barrister in England. As many believe - and believe rightly - even to this day, Bhutto Sahib thought: “She was a beautiful child.”
Benazir is reported to have said that Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto insisted on only one discipline, and that repeatedly, “you do well in your studies.” He was known to have kept track of their school reports through telephone from whatever part of the globe he was in. Late Begum Nusrat Bhutto is reported to have said that the father and daughter had stark similarities and that even the shapes of their hands matched!
As an 18-year old innocent daughter and a young student at Radcliffe College, Benazir sat behind her father, when he delivered his famous, impassioned speech to the UN Security Council on December 15, 1971. What better to have been trained by one of the most superior statesmen of the times, and that too, her father. During tense, diplomatic, wartime meetings such as with Indian journalists, diplomats, and politicians during the East Pakistan war, she was advised: “Don’t look sad, and don’t look happy.” She was present, by design, at the Governor’s House in Simla Hill Station on the historic day of July 2, 1972, when the Simla Peace Treaty was signed.
In almost tacit, understated reciprocity, she hardly ever spoke about herself or her agenda many years later whilst campaigning, but glorified her father’s vision and sacrifice throughout her relatively short political career.
Two years after Mujib and most of his family had been assassinated in Dhaka, Benazir watched on as her father was taken into “protective custody” in the aftermath of the Zia-led coup. She is reported by Mr Wolpert to have “faithfully attended” her father’s ‘murder’ trial in the courts of the land. After being “murdered for a murder that he did not commit”, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto continued to live through his political heir and daughter, Benazir Bhutto. Wherever she went in the world, she was greeted with the incessant chant of “Jiyey Bhutto”.
Benazir was a liberal, forward-looking leader, who, unfortunately, found that time was short during her two periods of rule, and not there at all when she sacrificed her life attempting for the third time to bring some semblance of democracy to her motherland.
In a near-prophetic manner, Benazir Bhutto wrote in her work, entitled Reconciliation, of happenings such as those experienced recently in the Middle East: “If the world community is to prevent a clash of civilisations, the way must be to promote the building blocks of democracy in the Islamic world.”
In the same book, Benazir Bhutto writes: “I agree with those who see economic development as leading to and consonant with democratic development.” Sadly, though, those that inherited the PPP and Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan seem to have lost her message. The brotherhood of all Pakistanis, whether at home or overseas, appeal to the Almighty to please right such wrongs on the eve of her death anniversary now approaching on December 27th.
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto lies in eternal peace in her ancestral Garhi Khuda Bukhsh.
She is succeeded by her three young children.

Embassy of Saudi Arabia donated a cheque of Rs 0.5 million for the Upgradation of children wards in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

In a simple ceremony, wife of Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan Al-Johrah Abdullah Al-Araekhi handed over the cheque to the Administration of Pims.
Later, she informed the media that the embassy would continue cash grant and medical equipments for the up-gradation of the children units.

She said this would help strengthen the relations between the two brotherly countries.

On this occasion, Executive Director Professor Mahmood Jamal, Pims said that Saudi Ambassador wife in her visit with Minister for Information Ashique Awan to Pims had promised to provide cash assistance for the children units.

Now she was fulfilling her commitment.

PESHAWAR, Dec 22: Speakers at a conference here on Thursday called upon the government to implement the laws for protection of child rights in the tribal areas.
They said that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) was a part of Pakistan, but there had been no efforts to fully implement the laws concerning the rights of children and women.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Masood Kausar told the participants that improving child rights in Fata was priority of the government.
The daylong conference on “Child rights in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata” was organised by the Society for Protection of the Rights of Child (Sparc).
The governor said that militancy was the major hurdle to development in Fata where schools, colleges, hospitals and other institutions were seriously affected by it.
“The children have suffered a lot and with this in mind serious steps are under way for promotion of educational and healthcare facilities in Fata,” he said. He assured coordination between the government departments and the civil society for implementation of laws for protection of the rights of children.
Sparc executive director Arshad Mahmood hailed the enactment of the Child Protection and Welfare Act by the provincial government and said that the law should be fully implemented.
Provincial minister for social welfare Sitara Ayaz said that child protection units had been set up in eight districts and eventually such units would be established in all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She said that so far 1,540 cases had been registered at these units, of 941 cases were decided or closed.
Country director of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Andre Huber said that the agency was willing to cooperate with the government and civil society for the promotion of child rights.
Journalist Shams Momand said that the recent reforms in Fata were just eyewash. He claimed that under the Action (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation 2011, introduced in Fata, even death could be awarded, which was not even the case under the FCR.
Pakistan Society of Criminology president Fasihuddin said that the traditional policing had failed to solve problems related to the disadvantaged groups like women and children.
He said that with his efforts two separate registers were introduced in all police stations of the province for registering cases related to women and children.

ISAMABAD: The participants at a national consultation urged the stakeholders to work on a systematic approach towards child protection, especially in post devolution scenario in order to find pragmatic solutions to the problems.

The national consultation “Adapting a system approach to child protection in Pakistan ” was jointly organised by Child Rights Legal Centre and Save the Children. The participants observed that developing systematic approach to child protection was challenging however it should be done in order to meet national and international standards such as UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Keeping in view the post devolution scenario, the experts in the consultation said that systematic approach to child protection demands the attention, commitment and coordination of all levels of government and other sectors including civil society, NGOs, private sector, academia, families, caregivers and children.

The consultation was well attended by the stakeholders from all provinces including Social Welfare, Police, Prison, Reclamation and Probation, Child Protection Units, Child Protection Commission, Remand Home, Child Protection Bureaus, Judicial Academy and National Child Protection Centre. Besides that civil society organisations and national coalitions including National Juvenile Justice Network, Child Rights Movements, Child Protection and Empowerment of Adolescent Network (CPEA) also participated.

Addressing on the occasion, Save the Children Country Director David Wright said that only systematic approach to child protection could ensure the sustainable solution to the problems. “It requires a national strategy, a sound legal framework and child friendly judicial system, targeted policies and planning, trained officials, research and public awareness to be able to prevent violence, identify child victims of violence and offer a comprehensive referral system including reporting, care and rehabilitation services,” he said.

National Commission on Children representative Hassan Mangi said that the problem with majority of organisations working on child protection was that they didn’t identify the needs and failed to address them in scientific way. “Child protection is a complex phenomenon and needs to be understood in a wider spectrum. It has different levels including family, street, union council, province and so on,” he said.

The participants of the consultation had the consensus that there should be a strong collaboration between different organisations and departments working on child protection to avoid duplication besides having a better mechanism to address the child protection issues.pr

Ever since 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan by the US, the world in Pakistan changed in many ways. Pakistan, US ally in WOT , the biggest sufferer in this expedition was just slapped with Congress passing a bill imposing more conditions on aid to Pakistan, especially linking it to Islamabad’s cooperation in war on terror and its efforts in curbing terrorists, including Haqqani network. Where should Pakistan go from here? For starters, Pakistan must strategize.

Pakistan should strategize to hasten the departure of NATO forces from her neighborhood. Ahmed Rashid, in his article,” The Way Out of Afghanistan”, states,” None of the attempts at rebuilding the Afghan state over the past nine years have really worked. What assurance is there that they will work by 2014?”

Secondly, Pakistan must expand on her trade base on two levels; regional and international. On the first level, she must strengthen friendly relations with nations of South West Asia Region. Entering into trading contracts and other “soft” interaction with Turkey, Sri Lanka(According to Sri Lanka Customs statistics, value of total trade between both countries was $345 million in October, 2011 recording 4.5 percent average growth from $169 million in 2005), China, Iran. More especially with Nepal.

On the second level, Pakistan must press not for aid, but for market access to western countries. US has recently suspended some $800 million in aid to Pakistan. This may be set off by China, our largest trading partner, particularly in infra structure & mining, worth almost $9 billion last year! However, Pakistan must increase trade with other western countries. Removing eggs from the USA’s basket just to place it in Chinese one, can make for uncomfortable sleeping partners! The policy of restricting her major economic interactions has given USA immense leverage to call the shots where Pakistan is concerned. There are lessons to be learnt here. Political independence & sovereignty is the outcome of economic independence. Is Pakistan ready to be finally politically independent?

—Lahore

Children are the most precious gift of Allah and the future of any nation, so the nations who want to be a developed one in future always try their best to facilitate their children. Child labour is the serious crime all over the world UNICEF defines “child labour” as some type of work performed by children below 18.

The number of child labour in Pakistan is from 8 to 10 million.During the last year the Federal Bereau of Statistics released the result of its survey that 3.8 million children age group of 5-14 years are working in Pakistan out of total 40 million children.50% of these economically active children are in age group of 5 to 9 years.Even out of these 3.8 million children,2.7 million were claimed to be working in the agricultural sector.Two million and four hundred thousand (73%) of them were said to be boys

Government of Pakistan have passed the law that primary education is compulsory for every one.But we all know that action speaks louder than words.So the government should supply free course to the government schools and should make the level of government schools comparative to private schools so that the condition of equality exists.The government should take some notice on child labour as well and take some strict action against those responsible so that the future of Pakistan become save and educated.

LAHORE: “Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) provides a valid ‘defence’ to care-givers of children when they employ mild to moderate punishments,” said Rashid Aziz while addressing a forum, Tackling Corporal Punishment, organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) on Wednesday.
Rashid Aziz, who is the national manager of the Legal Advisory Unit at SPARC, said that 19 countries had completely prohibited any form of corporal punishment.  “While corporal punishment is thought to be most prevalent in madrassas, children are also subjected to it at private schools and homes,” he said.
Pakistan is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, with Articles 19, 28 and 37 explicitly making the state responsible for protecting the child from any physical or mental abuse, torture or degrading punishment while maintaining the child’s dignity. The PPC, however, provides parents or guardians the leeway to employ mild punishments as a tool for ‘disciplining’.
Section 89 of the PPC 1860 allows ‘mild’ to ‘moderate’ degree of corporal punishment to a child under the age of 12 by any person with the implied or express consent of the guardian or any other person having lawful charge of the child.
Elaborating on Section 35 of the Punjab Destitute & Neglected Children (PDNC) Act 2004, Aziz said it exempted parents from any liability with regards to inflicting corporal punishment on their children. Section 35 of the PDNC 2004 states that anyone, ‘except the parent’, who has charge of the child and ill-treats the child in a manner which causes mental or physical suffering, shall be punished through imprisonment and/or a fine.
“Is a child property or does he enjoy the privilege of being a respectful citizen?” said Iftikhar Mubarak, programme manager of SPARC’s Violence against Children programme. He said the Punjab government had side stepped the issue by claiming that the amendment of criminal laws falls under federal jurisdiction. Education Department Academic Deputy Secretary Zahid Mehmood said all complaints are duly entertained. He added that after a thorough investigation due action is taken.
The Juvenile Justice System Ordinance completely prohibits corporal punishment of children in detention. According to the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB), more than 12,000 children have been rescued from 2005 to 2011 and enrolled in Child Protection Schools of the CPWB, which provide free primary education and legal protection to these children. The Bureau has also proposed that corporal punishment be abolished in all forms under the PPC 1860. The proposed amendment states that whoever inflicts or permits corporal punishment on a child under any circumstance for any purpose, should be punished. Pehchaan, an NGO working for the rights of children, president Dr Naeem Zafar said, “Punishing a child just because the adult is under mental stress is no justification and should not be considered as one.” Dr Zafar added that there have been several cases brought to his notice in which corporal punishment lead to sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of a child.
“There is no explicit definition of ‘mild’ or ‘moderate’ punishment,” he said, adding that while cases get reported, there is no prosecution because the law cannot be considered broken in the absence of explicit definitions of these terms.
Hameed Nizami Press Institute director Absar Abdul Ali argued that while teachers and parents should be educated against corporal punishments for disciplining children, a lot of focus needs to be on the ‘domestic setting’ of the household.
“Any punishment that undermines the self respect of a child has to be strictly prohibited since it causes devastating effects on the child’s personality,” Ali said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2011.

CHILDREN are the future of any nation and, therefore, they should be so groomed as to be able to shoulder all its responsibilities.
Child labour is a serious crime all over the world. Unicef defines it as some type of work performed by children below 18. The number of child labourers in Pakistan is about 10 million.
Last year the Federal Bereau of Statistics released the result of its survey: 3.8 million children in the age group of five to 14 years are working in Pakistan out of a total of 40 million children.
50 per cent of these economically active children are in the age group of five to nine years. Even out of these 3.8 million children, 2.7 million were claimed to be working in the agricultural sector. Two million and four hundred thousand (73 per cent) of them were said to be boys.
The government has passed the law that primary education is compulsory for every one. But we all know that action speaks louder than words. So the government should supply free course to the government schools and should make the level of government schools comparative to private schools so that the condition of equality exists. The government should take some notice on child labour as well and take some strict action against those responsible so that the future of Pakistan become save and educated.
HAMMAD MOHAMMAD
Karachi)
Street children
IF you take a round of the Civic Centre and other similar spots in Karachi, you will find hundreds of children who have been born and bred on footpaths. They have hardly any food or clothes; medicine is out of reach for them, and shelter from sun and rain is just the shade of a tree. Most important of all: they remain illiterate and have no direction in life.
When they grow up and see other children enjoying life, they start cultivating a sort of animosity towards society and those better off.
Even before these children become 10, most boys fall easy prey to terrorist organisations where they get everything they need and much more while the girls are taken away by affluent people who use them according to their vested interests.
In a way, our government is responsible for inadvertently promoting terrorism in the country by neglecting this enormous population. Every year, hundreds of these children add to the strength of terrorists.
In Pakistan, every day at least five rape cases are reported, while unreported cases might be 10 times or more, making the figure 50 or more.
Some NGOs are doing good work, but this can be termed as a drop in the ocean. Sincere and serious efforts are needed to help street children all over Pakistan.
Therefore, it is necessary that a cell be created in the president’s palace or right adjacent to it where street children can be educated and trained to become useful members of society.
S. MUSLEHUDDIN AHMED
Karachi

When police raided the Islamic school on the northern outskirts of Pakistan's largest city Karachi last week they made a shocking discovery: an underground dungeon where teenage drug addicts were beaten and abused.
Yet parents of some of the boys have told The Daily Telegraph they knew what was going on in the madrassah cellars - and even approved of the brutal methods they believed were the only way to deal with teen delinquents.
One claimed to have aided the Madrassah Zakarya's approach. When Umar Khan took his two sons to the single-storey, whitewashed school, he brought with him two sets of chains and padlocks.
"They are young and so naughty. I was worried they would run away. This was to straighten them out for a month," he said.
The madrassah is now closed. Its head teacher is on the run and two members of the staff have been arrested. For now that means that Khan's two sons, Mohammed Haroon, 13, and Mohammed Shazwar, 10, have returned home.
"If they are naughty I'll send them to an even worse place where they are chained even tighter," he said, roaring with laughter.
Police arrived at the madrassah last Monday night alerted by a local television channel. As they prepared to raid the premises they could hear screams coming from beneath an open-air meeting room. They descended a stone staircase to find an underground warren of rooms - and unimaginable misery. They released more than 60 boys and young men living in squalor and chained to each other in threes.
Hooks sunk into the walls made the place resemble a "torture chamber" and 11 of the boys had been beaten "red and black", according to the police report.
Ehsan Marwat, who heads the local police station, said his officers were shocked at the welts and bruising they found.
"The police also use these methods but we have to face the courts and the media. These guys showed no mercy."
Mohammed Haroon said it was a relief to be going home. He had spent two weeks at the madrassah after being sent by his father for stealing a wheelbarrow from a neighbour.
"If we were being naughty then we would be beaten," he said, sitting on the steps in a dusty courtyard outside his former prison. "We knew that's how it worked."
The stairs to the dungeon have been sealed but that does not stop most of the madrassah's pupils congregating outside every day. Many have little choice if they want some form of education.
One of the youngest boys, Wali Mohammed, seven, had been asleep when the police arrived. The commotion sent him screaming from the scene - an image printed in newspapers around the world.
In a tiny voice he explained that he was never mistreated although he lived in fear of the noises he heard coming from underground.
"I never saw them and stayed away from the place because it sounded so bad," he said. "I knew they were down there because my brothers told me."
His father, Buaz Mohammed, admitted that he knew drug addicts were chained in the cellar but had no other option for his son's education.
"This was the only place I could send him because they don't ask for any money."
The mosque stands in Sohrab Goth, a desperately poor corner of Karachi, Pakistan's economic capital. Thousands of people have arrived from Afghanistan, the border areas and the province of Balochistan looking for work and living in little more than a shanty town.

KARACHI: Children Cancer Foundation Pakistan Trust has invited child specialists to a Paediatric Oncology Intensive Course to be held at Children Cancer Hospital here from December 19 to 24. The training programme for pediatricians, fourth of the series of intensive course to handle cases of cancer among children, is supported by International Union Against Cancer (UICC) under its ‘My Child Matters Programme’. This will be a case based learning and interactive course, focussed mainly on case scenarios and group discussions. Doctors interested to attend the course have been advised to get themselves registered at
E-mail: cch160170@gmail.com. app

LAHORE – Monthly “Phool”, a famous children magazine of Nawa-i-Waqt Group, on Saturday organised a ceremony to show solidarity and to generate donations for the victims of Turkey earthquake.
The ceremony was addressed by Pak-Turk Foundation Director Saadi Yaldarer, Akkas Harmain Sharifain Azmat Sheikh, Editor Monthly “Phool” Mohammad Shoaib Mirza and the other speakers. Mehral Qamar, Shanza Shoaib, Mehak Sabir, Malaika Sabir, Minahil Naeem, Rehan Ahmad, Sufian Ahmad and others donated money and gifts for the earthquake victims.
Speaking on the ceremony, Pak-Turk Foundation Director Saadi Yaldarer said “Both Pakistan and Turkey help each other in every need of hour. We are two countries but one nation”. He also applauded the spirit of “Phool” children team who donated their pocket money for the good cause that, he said, was a good omen.
The children of Pakistan, he applauded, are eager to make a contribution to help alleviate the sufferings of the earthquake victims.
Akkas Harmain Sharifain Azmat Sheikh said that the Muslims around the world are united. He also appreciated the efforts of “Phool” team, adding the ceremony had delivered a message of goodwill to the world.
Editor “Phool” Mohammad Shoaib Mirza said on the proposal of Anisa Fatima Qadri, a student speaker of first rank, this ceremony was planned.
He showed pleasure on the donations worth Rs 50,000 and hoped that these children would not borrow money in future. The Muslim world should rely on its own resources instead of looking for others’ assistance, he stressed. Anisa Fatima Qadri in her speech said that ties between the two countries would be made stronger.
A letter from a student of DG Khan was also delivered on the occasion that read “I feel pleasure to send my entire saving of Rs 1,000 to the earthquake victims of Turkey”.
The students of New Crescent School Samanabad sang National anthem on the occasion. The ceremony was concluded with the national anthems of both the countries.

KARACHI - A petition was filed in the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Saturday, on behalf of civil society organisations, seeking the enforcement of the fundamental right to compulsory education under Article 25-A of the constitution.
The petition was filed by Advocate Faisal Siddiqi on behalf of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, the Aurat Publication and Information Service Foundation, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, the South Asia Partnership Pakistan, the Institute of Social Movements Pakistan, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, the National Trade Union Federation and the Bright Educational Society.
The petition cited the Sindh government as respondent, through the education secretary.
Citing the constitution, the petitioners urged the SHC to declare that the respondent [the Sindh government] is under a constitutional obligation under the 18th Amendment, which ostensibly binds the state under Article 25A, ‘Right to Education’, for providing free and compulsory education to all children from age five to 16.
The petitioners - maintaining that under the 18th Amendment education have now become a right and no longer an arbitrary entitlement - appealed to the high court to direct the respondent to ensure the implementation of this constitutional guarantee as the Respondent has enacted no legislation and taken no executive action to implement the fundamental right constitutional obligation of Article 25-A, of the constitution.
The petitioners also sought direction for the formation of a commission, comprising well-reputed members of the civil society and government officials, to monitor the implementation of the concerned constitutional obligation of the respondent; to publish a detailed programme of measures to be taken by them to implement the Article 25A and direct the respondent to check and monitor the charging of exorbitant fees by private schools from children in the province.
Terming the failure of the government to provide free and compulsory education to all children as unconstitutional and a fundamental failure of the respondent, the petitioners declared that Article 25-a imposes a constitutional obligation on the Respondent to take legislative, financial and administrative measures, to ensure no child remains denied of the this fundamental right to education.
Quoting the UNESCO Institute of Statistics report in EdStats, 2011, the petition referred to the Pakistan Public Expenditure on education that is only 2.7 percent of the total gross domestic product and the total dropout rate of the primary education is at least 39.8 percent.
According to the report, the number of out-of-school male children at the primary level in Pakistan is 3,108,413 while the number of female out-of-school children at the primary level is 4,191,384. The International Development Association established by the World Bank has observed, in relation to Sindh, that an estimated 11 million children, from ages five to 14, were still out of school in 2007.
“Only 53 percent of individuals, ages 17 to 21, have completed secondary schooling. Assessment data shows that average learning levels in key subjects such as mathematics and language are significantly below official curriculum standards. These shortfalls are greater for girls, rural children, and, in particular, poor children,” it added.
The petition also quoted the Pakistan Living Standard Measurement Survey, 2007-2008, according to which the literacy rate among the children aged above 10 for Pakistan is 56 percent, 56 percent in Sindh and 44 percent in rural Sindh.
According to the aforementioned survey, the primary enrolment in private school is 35 percent in Pakistan, while in Sindh it is 27 percent and in rural Sindh five percent.
Linking the right to education with the right to life, “as the right to life includes a right to a decent education,” the petition also mentioned the Principles of policies for governance of Pakistan as enshrined under Article 37(b), of the Constitution, 1973, that outlines removing “illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within a minimum possible period”, as duties of the state.
While pointing to the abysmal and continuing declining rate of literacy in the country, the petition called for immediate action by provincial government to ensure that no child is denied access to education.

Childhood obesity epidemic is now penetrating the developing countries including Pakistan, especially in the affluent urban population. There is no data on association of family-based factors with overweight and obesity among school-aged children in Pakistan. The study aimed to explore the family-based factors associated with overweight and obesity among Pakistani primary school children.

Methods

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted with a representative multistage cluster sample of 1860 children aged five to twelve years in Lahore, Pakistan. Overweight (>+1SD BMI-for-age z-score) and obesity (>+2SD BMI-for-age z-score) were defined using the World Health Organization reference 2007. Chi-square test was used as the test of trend. Linear regression was used to examine the predictive power of independent variables in relation to BMI. Logistic regression was used to quantify the independent predictors of overweight and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were obtained. All regression analyses were controlled for age and gender and statistical significance was considered at P <0.05.

Results

Significant family-based correlates of overweight and obesity included higher parental education (P<0.001), both parents working (P=0.002), fewer siblings (P<0.001), fewer persons in child's living room (P<0.001) and residence in high-income neighborhoods (P<0.001). Smoking in living place was not associated with overweight and obesity. Higher parental education (P<0.001) and living in high-income neighborhoods (P<0.001) showed a significant independent positive association with BMI while greater number of siblings (P=0.001) and persons in child's living room (P=0.022) showed a significant independent inverse association. College-level or higher parental education as compared to high school-level or lower parental education (aOR 2.54, 95% CI 1.76-3.67), living in high-income neighborhoods as compared to low-income neighborhoods (aOR 2.13, 95% CI 1.31-3.46) and three or less siblings as compared to more than three siblings (aOR 1.75, 95% CI 1.26-2.42) were significant independent predictors of overweight.

Conclusion

Family-based factors were significantly associated with overweight and obesity among school-aged children in Pakistan. Higher parental education, living in high-income neighborhoods and fewer siblings were independent predictors of overweight. These findings support the need to design evidence-based child health policy and implement targeted interventions, considering the impact of family-based factors and involving communities.