Impact on student enrollment of initiatives taken by punjab government for free & compulsory education in rural areas of punjab
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Date
2019
Authors
UZMA KHALIL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UMT.Lahore
Abstract
The constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1972, after its 18th amendment, under article 25 (A) provides free and compulsory primary education as a fundamental right for Pakistanis and responsibility of the state. The government of Pakistan has therefore taken constitutional initiatives to synthesize the importance and need for free and compulsory primary education. Regarding the implementation of the amendment, the Punjab government has taken some initiatives to increase student enrolment, especially in rural areas. Major obstacles in achieving 100% enrollment & to minimize dropout are home-school distance and school security conditions, such as absence of boundary walls and provision of basic facilities like electricity, clean water and toilets. This research evaluates the outcome of initiatives taken by Punjab government regarding improvement of infrastructure and facilities, security and home to school distance on student enrolment. The research was descriptive in its nature and the data was collected by using survey method. The tool for the collection of data was a self-developed questionnaire on five point Likert type scale. Data was collected from 306 principals of public primary schools and 313 parents of the children studying in these schools situated in two tehsils of Sargodha district. Each tehsil was taken as a cluster and proportionate sampling was used to select number of school principals and parents depending upon the size of population of each tehsil in the Sargodha district. Major findings inform us that though infrastructure and basic facilities have improved in the district, security and home to school distance are still a problem. Therefore, the study suggests that Punjab government has to take further initiatives to reduce home to school distance and offer better school transportation facilities, because long distance to school becomes a security hazard in itself.
Keywords: 18th amendment, free and compulsory education, home to school distance, infrastructure, Punjab Government Initiatives, security.