In Pakistan, one in four children will not be educated by 2030: UNESCO

One in four Pakistani children will not have completed primary school by the 2030s of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a UN report said.

The new projections of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) show that Pakistan will not be halfway to the goal of 12 years of education for all, 50% of young people still have not completed upper secondary education. rate, the Dawn newspaper reported on Wednesday.

"Countries must respect their commitments. What is the point of setting goals if we can not follow them? Better finance and better coordination are needed to fill this data gap before we get closer to the deadline, "said Silvia Montoya, director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

The new UNESCO projections prepared for the United Nations High Level Political Forum show that the world will not honor its education commitments without a rapid acceleration of progress.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development stresses that no one should be left behind, but that only 4% of the poorest 20% complete upper secondary education in the poorest countries. , against 36% of the richest. The gap is even larger in lower middle-income countries.

By 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six children aged 6 to 17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out of school: by 2030, 40% of them will still not complete secondary education at current rates, said the media.

The new global goal for education, SDG-4, calls on countries to ensure that children not only go to school but also learn. Yet, the proportion of qualified teachers in sub-Saharan Africa has been declining since 2000.

According to current trends, apprenticeship rates are expected to stagnate in middle-income countries and in Latin America and fall by almost one-third in francophone African countries by 2030. Without rapid acceleration, worldwide, 20% young people and 30% of young adults will still be unable to read by the deadline.

"Countries have interpreted the meaning of the goals of the global goal of education in a very different way. This seems correct since countries start from so different starting points. But they should not shy away from the promises they made in 2015, "said Manos Antoninis, director of the Global Report on Education Monitoring.