Government primary schools 'Corporal punishment main cause of dropouts'

Secretary General, Foundation for Rehabilitation & Education of Special Children (FRESH) Ashba Kamran has said corporal punishment is the main cause of dropouts at the government primary schools. She said Pakistan's literacy rate is 50 percent and according to National Education Policy, Pakistan is ranked at 31 out of 35 countries in the Muslim world and 134th out of 180 countries.
About 25 percent children in Pakistan are never enrolled in primary schools and 50 percent of the enrolled leave schools before completing primary education, she said. "An abnormal dropout rate of 50 percent must be a cause of concern for the civil society, policymakers and the teaching community of Pakistan," she added.
She said education of 3.8 million illiterate children through remedial education system may bring down the number of school dropouts considerably in the next 10 years. She lamented that high dropout rate has been identified as one of the major contributing factors to a dismal state of education sector in Pakistan. According to her, corporal punishment was resulting in high dropout rate in schools, especially those being run by the government. She said it was obvious that not every child could cope with his class fellows due to many genuine reasons including mental incapacity to learn and understand easily.
She said FRESH was exclusively working to help children with learning barriers through dedicated syllabus and exclusively trained teachers at its schools. she said a good number of students having educated and trained at the remedial schools, run and owned by FRESH, are successfully contributing to society and national economy by joining different domestic and international firms.