Islamabad [Pakistan], June 9 (ANI): In spite of the fact that over 23 million children are not in school, the Pakistan government only allocated 1.7 per cent of GDP to education in the previous year, and the literacy rate was just over 62 per cent, reported Dawn.

According to the Pakistan Economic Survey, which was published on Thursday, 62.8 per cent of Pakistanis were literate, with 73.4 per cent of men and 51.9 per cent of women.

According to the survey, the combined spending on education by the federal and provincial governments was estimated at 1.7 per cent of the GDP in FY22. "Expenditures on education-related activities during FY2022 witnessed an increase of 37.3 per cent, and reached Rs 1,101.7 billion from Rs 802.2 billion," it said, according to Dawn.

Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper launched in 1941.

According to the survey, there are 32 per cent of youngsters who are not in school, with more girls than boys. According to the report, Balochistan has the highest percentage of out-of-school children (47 per cent) followed by Sindh (44per cent) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (32 per cent) and Punjab (24 per cent).

In addition, it stated that initiatives are being taken to raise educational standards and enroll out-of-school kids.

"The focus is being given on basic and college education to make the younger generation competitive from an early age. For a country like Pakistan, it becomes even more indispensable for its socio-economic development through an effective transition of its huge proportion of younger population... Transformation of 63 per cent youth into a real wealth requires optimum capitalisation through establishing a high-quality and market demand driven basic, secondary and higher education," it said, as per Dawn.

According to the survey, Pakistan is committed to achieving Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which calls for equitable education, the abolition of discrimination, the provision and improvement of infrastructure, the development of skills for sustainable progress, universal literacy and numeracy, and the improvement of teachers' professional capacities. The progress achieved by Pakistan so far on Goal 4 is the completion of the rate of primary, lower, and upper secondary education is 67 per cent, 47 per cent, and 23 per cent, respectively.

In 2020-21, there were 158.4 thousand teachers working in 7.1 thousand higher secondary schools across the nation. In higher secondary education, overall, there was a 4.5 per cent rise in student enrollment in the academic years 2020-21. The enrolment registered during 2020-21 was 2.32 million as compared to 2.22 million in 2019-20. For 2021-22, it was estimated at 2.53 million, as per Dawn.

The projects and initiatives of the government, as per the survey, were aimed at introducing a "uniform curriculum," capacity building of teachers, establishment, renovation and up-gradation of schools and colleges, mainstreaming of religious education, skills development, and promoting awareness among various segments of society, especially targeting youth.

The survey also said, "Pakistan's literacy, enrolment and other educational indicators are gradually improving...[but] an improvement in [the] education sector cannot be achieved without [the] active participation of all stakeholders, especially the private sector," Dawn reported. (ANI)