Islamabad [Pakistan], March 11 (ANI): A report by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2021 revealed the deficiencies in the country's education system, 45 per cent of students, mostly fifth graders, could not read a sentence in Urdu and their regional languages while 44 per cent could not read sentences in English.

The report is the largest annual citizen-led household survey, was launched in Islamabad on Thursday and it pointed out that no serious improvement was noted during the survey and results of the year 2019 and 2021 are almost the same, reported Dawn.

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Student competencies in learning language and arithmetic have declined as only 55 pc of children from grade 5 could read a story in Urdu, Sindhi or Pashto as compared to 59 pc in 2019, the report stated, adding that only 56 pc of the surveyed students could read sentences in English while 55 pc could do digit division.

The report has also highlighted the progress and challenges in the implementation of Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan, which suggests education for all.

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In 2021, 19 per cent of children were reported to be out-of-school and this number increased as compared to 2019 (17 pc). About 81 pc of all school-aged children within the age bracket of 6-16 years were enrolled in schools, it added.

Amongst these, 81 pc (77 pc in 2019) of the children were enrolled in government schools whereas 19 pc (23 pc in 2019) were stated to be going to non-state institutions (18 pc private schools, 1 pc in seminaries). The share of children going to private schools has dropped by 4 pc compared to 2019, added Dawn.

Early childhood education (ECE) saw a marginal decline (38 pc in 2021) from 2014 when ECE enrolment stood at 39 pc. It remained to be largely ignored as a holistic sub-sector addressing the physical, socio-emotional and cognitive domains.

The report concluded that enrollment and school preparedness figures have indicated some troublesome aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. (ANI)

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