PAKISTAN is in the midst of a critical education crisis, with over 22.8 million children aged five to 16 years out of school, placing it second only to Nigeria in this context. The situation is especially dire for girls, with 53 per cent out of school as compared to 43pc of boys. Declaring a national education emergency, Pakistan identifies poverty, lack of infrastructure, cultural barriers, child labour, and early marriages as core obstacles.

Innovative solutions are required. Traditional efforts focus on bringing children to schools, yet many children living near these institutes of learning don’t attend, often perceiving education as irrelevant. This signals a need to (a) connect education with job opportunities and (b) customise schooling to meet children’s needs. To date, all conversations have focused on bringing the childto school. We need to now think of the reverse.

A promising model is hybrid technical and vocational education and training, which equips children with job skills alongside basic literacy. Hybrid TVET bridges the gap between education and work readiness, focusing on out-of-school children. It merges academic learning with vocational skills such as carpentry, tailoring, IT, plumbing, and........

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