ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has stressed the need of declaring national emergency to promote education for better and prosperous future of the country. Addressing a seminar on “Out of School Children; Issues, Challenges and Way forward” here in Islamabad on Wednesday, he said we have to seek out of the box solutions to move forward and correct our priorities towards right direction. The President said the countries which wanted to develop, focused on empowerment of women and promotion of education.

Dr Arif Alvi emphasized the elected representatives to set their priorities and focus on education for betterment of the society. He also asked philanthropists to come forward for this noble cause. He regretted that Pakistan is lagging behind in imparting quality education and only 68 percent of the children are enrolled till primary level in the schools. The President said today, Pakistan is confronted with multiple challenges and there is a need for making collective efforts by all the stakeholders and every segment of the society to bring the country out of these challenges.

Speaking on the occasion, Senator Fawzia Arshad said as per the constitution of Pakistan, it is the responsibility of state to impart education to children in the age bracket of 5 to 16 years. Referring to alarming number of out of school children, the Senator said it is our responsibility to eradicate this inequality in the society. She said 22.8 million children are out of school which is 44 percent of this age group.

In his remarks, Federal Secretary for Education and Professional Training Aamir Ashraf Khawaja stressed on the need of out of box solutions for the issue. He said the Ministry for Education has introduced free meals in schools to attract to more children in schools. He said an “App” is also being developed to provide better education to school children.