‘Ghost schools’ haunt Pakistan
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Pakistan’s education budget has doubled in recent years — to almost as much as the military’s — but literacy and dropout rates remain abysmal and “ghost schools” persist, a new report said.
A staggering 24 million children are not in school and more than half of eight-yearolds cannot read despite the budget growing twofold to $7.5 billion in the last six years, the report from the US-based Wilson Center released Thursday found. Pakistan’s poor report card comes even as the number of so-called ghost schools — which receive funding but have no teachers or students — has declined in some areas.
Nationwide there were fewer ghost schools than in the early 2000s when up to 20 percent of all schools across the country were empty, the study called “Pakistan’s Education Crisis: The Real Story” said. The United States, Britain and the World Bank have poured money into Pakistan’s stagnating public education sector, seen as a key weapon against religious extremism and rising income inequality. (AFP)
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