Pakistan home to the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children: Bilawal Bhutto

Islamabad: Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that Pakistan is home to the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children with an estimated 22.8 million children and stressed for collective efforts and responsibilities to improve literacy rate in the country.

In his message on the International Literacy Day being observed tomorrow under the aegis of Unicef, the PPP Chairman said that illiteracy is the fertile ground for disharmonious and intolerant societies and the nation should take notice that the number of out-of-school children was growing per cent-wise.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that every child has the basic right to education and nations who fail to provide this right ultimately suffer because nurturing a healthy and educated generation was the only guarantee for a peaceful, prosperous and strong country.

He said that PPP has always struggled for improvement in literacy and education as it has the distinction of establishing the largest number of education institutions in Pakistan while academic activities suffered a lot during dictatorial regimes when ghost school buildings were introduced as a political bribe for free-wheeling political puppets in exchange for their support.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointed out that PPP’s Sindh government has earmarked more than a quarter of its provincial budget on education and the province was planning programmes to attract out-of-school children to attend schools.