Education is a fundamental human right. Every child in South Asia is entitled to quality, rights-based education, rooted in gender equality.
South and Central Asia Situational Analysis
40% of out of school children live in South Asia. In terms of per capita expenditure on education, South Asia even lags behind Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC) obligation to make primary education free, this often only applies to tuition fees. Parents still have to pay for entrance fees, books, uniforms, exam fees and school development funds. Such costs make education inequitable and this affects girls in poor families the most.
In Pakistan out of the 7.78 million children out of school, 5.9 million are girls. In Tajikistan girls in conservative rural areas are prevented from entering upper secondary education due to family work and early marriage. However, in Kyrgyzstan boys are more at risk of being taken out of secondary school to work, with only 60% of boys attending grades 10 – 11 compared to 69% of girls
Despite the 97% enrolment rate in Sri Lanka, 17% do not complete compulsory education (ages 6-14). Though Bangladesh has achieved gender parity, 15% of children remain out of school, including tribal children, street-children, child-workers, those with disabilities and children living in urban slums.
Low enrolment rates are linked to disadvantaged groups like scheduled castes/tribes, socially excluded classes, religious fundamental sections of rural society and geographically remote children. In Nepal and India, social inclusion remains a challenge, especially regarding Dalits, children with disabilities, and those from linguistic and ethnic minorities. In Tajikistan 25% and in Kyrgyzstan only 44% of children with disabilities are integrated in mainstream education.
Poverty greatly affects social inclusion and access to education. Large differences between educational attainment can be found in India, with a 10 year gap between the average number of years of educational attainment of the poor and the rich. In Pakistan the gap is 9 years and in Bangladesh 6 years.
In Bangladesh 65% of children finish school up to grade five, in Nepal 61% finish and in India 78 % of children finish. Primary school completion rates are only provided by Nepal (34%) and Bangladesh (55%). Though completion is improving, many children still drop-out due to costs, unfriendly learning environments, the need to supplement family income or poor education quality. National averages of completion rates also hide significant disparities among different groups within countries.
In South Asia, the average amount of instructional time is well below the global benchmark. Teacher and pupil absenteeism, shortage of classrooms,lack of learning materials and inappropriate discipline methods further exacerbate the impact of insufficient instructional time. More than 80,000 primary schools in Pakistan are without basic facilities.
However, recently there has been increased access to education. Between 2002 and 2005 the number of out-of-school children of primary school age in South Asia declined from about 43 to 26 million by about 11.5 million in India, 3 million in Afghanistan, 2 million in Pakistan, and 1 million in Bangladesh. There was also an increase in enrollment rates at the secondary level, though the overall numbers remain low. At the tertiary level, enrollment rates in the region increased to 10 percent. This is an impressive achievement for such a short period of time.