hen the erstwhile tribal districts were riddled with militancy, hundreds of families were displaced. These displacements disrupted the schooling of their children. A majority of the displaced children remained out of school or were forced to drop out. Those children have now grown up and returned to their villages. Most of them are now in the 14 to 16 age bracket. The militants blew up hundreds of schools in the tribal districts. For those children who have now returned, continuing education is a challenge.

Despite the efforts made by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government over the years, at least 4.9 million children remain out of school across the province. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Elementary and Secondary Education Department has formally launched the second phase of this year’s school admission campaign to enrol as many as 0.3 million out-of-school children in a bid to improve the literacy rates and enrol dropout children.

Education Minister, Faisal Tarakai, launched a school enrolment campaign this year. The campaign, initially launched in government schools, will continue till September 30. Tarakai says in the first phase of the campaign 119,900 children were enrolled. Now, the government intends to enrol 0.3 million children in the second phase. He has said a total of 1.5 million children will be enrolled in government schools under this campaign.

While launching the second phase of the enrolment drive, Tarakai had said that 21 per cent of the provincial budget had been allocated for education. He had also announced the launching of an education card in Chitral. To improve the literacy rate in the province, Tarakai had announced that the government would recruit 22,000 teachers.

Formal and non-formal education programmes are being used to address the issue of low literacy and out-of-school children in the province. Formal education is run by the government while non-formal education operations are run through donor funding.

In 2019, the Alternate Learning Pathways programmes were launched for children aged 9 to 16 years, targeting mostly drop-outs and out-of-school children. The programmes initially focused on overage (for various learning levels) out-of-school children and dropouts in the province. These were launched in 10 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Over time, the programmes have been extended to 27 districts.

Unfortunately, there is no formal policy regarding non-formal education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There is no dedicated directorate to cater to the educational needs of over-aged out-of-school children in the province. To mainstream overage children in the formal education sector, the ALP programme was notified by the Education Department.

Atif Quddus, the ALP manager, says that the entire programme has been funded by donors. The ALP programme is functioning with the technical and financial support of the UNICEF and the World Bank. Quddus says that in the absence of a formal policy regarding non formal education in the province, there can be no government funding to programmes such as the ALP.

Meanwhile in the Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, directorates, various foundations and Social Welfare Departments are working in non-formal education and supporting similar ALP programmes. In KP, however, such operational structure in not available.

1,267 Accelerated Education Programme learning centres have been established under the project. Among these, 690 are for female students. A total of 42,644 learners (aged 9 to 16) are enrolled in these centres. Of these, over 24,000 are female learners.

Since August 2022, Sardar Khan Safi has been the district coordinator of ALP in Mohmand.

“Over the last two years, 385 students at our centres have been mainstreamed (have passed the 8th Grade) and enrolled in the 9th Grade in formal schools. Among these students, 93 are girls from far-flung areas of Mohmand,” says Safi.

There are 45 Accelerated Education Programme learning centres in the tribal district of Mohmand. Currently, 1,200 students are enrolled in these education centres, mostly established in Hujra and Madrasa.

The ALP programmes provide students with books, notebooks and hygiene training. Volunteer forums have also been set up. These volunteers help the ALP staff in identifying dropouts and out-of-school children.

According to the 2023 digital census by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the number of out-of-school children (5-16) in the province stands at 4.9 million. Of these, 2.9 million are female.

Imran Takkar, a Peshwar-based child rights activist, says that there are many factors contributing to low literacy and dropout rates in the province.

“Rising population, poverty, lack of facilities in schools and low budgetary allocations are some of the main reasons for this,” he says.

“There is no employment facilitation,” Takkar says. “Instead of sending them to schools, poor families prefer to teach skills to their children,” he says. “Female dropout rate is higher because some of the high schools and higher secondary schools are situated far away. Lack of reliable public transport makes the commute challenging for them. In some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the local culture doesn’t encourage girls to attend faraway schools.”

The writer is a freelance multimedia journalist. He tweets @daudpasaney