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Law Society urges implementation of Article 25A
LAHORE: The Law Society’s legal education committee has strongly demanded implementation of Article 25A of the constitution which holds the state responsible for providing free education to children of school-going age.
In a discussion on the topic at Law Society’s secretariat, it urged the government to devise a strategy to check the alarming dropout rate among school-going children.
If this trend continues, the children leaving schools may get trapped in unhealthy activities and become a hazard for the society in future, the committee observed.
Advocate Nadeem Jamal, director, Training and Research, the Law Society, told participants of the seminar that Article 25A declares that: “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.”
Today millions of Pakistani children are out of schools mainly because of the inability of the state to perform its constitutional responsibility.
The participants were of the opinion that Pakistani society suffers from intolerance, terrorism, ethnic conflicts, communal tensions, political instability and economic woes. These factors spread cynicism among the youth who become disenchanted with institutions of learning. There was a consensus on the fact that deviancy is not an act but reaction to an act and that Pakistan’s social structure is forcing children to become deviants.
Concluding the discussion, Advocate Intazar Mahdi, secretary, the Law Society, said it is imperative that the deviants, rebels and criminals are exposed, imprisoned, deterred and incapacitated. But more important is the need to reform the social structure and the institutions which are dysfunctional and, as a result, compel people to find illegitimate means to fulfil their basic needs. State institutions responsible for providing education to the masses need immediate attention; otherwise a large number of Pakistani children will remain illiterate and deprived of good opportunities in life, he concluded.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk