LA HORE: With over five million primary school-going age children out-of-school in the country and formal public and private education sectors` inability to cater to all children, the non-formal basic education sector (NFBE) has emerged as the only option to serve the missed out children and meet requirements of Article 25-A.

With the support of Ilm Ideas and employing ASER assessment instruments a research jointly conducted by the Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE) and Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) was launched here on Wednesday said 51 per cent of the NFBE stu-dents were able to read a story in Urdu, Sindhi or Pushto while only 37pc of the students in the public and 34pc in private schools were able to do the same.

`The students of government and private schools generally perform slightly better in English test and much better in the math test as compared to their counterparts in NFBE centers,` it says.

The reportfurther says the government policy`s emphasis has so far been on subsidizing low-cost private schools. The study advocates the NFBE sector is another avenue that has the potential to address the out-of-school children and imparting of early education at a low cost ranging from Rs200 to Rs500 per child per month.

`If low-cost private schools aredeemed worthy of support on the basis of low per child cost, so should the NFBE centers, with the focus being on numeracy and literacy or early childhood e ducation,` asserts SAHE executive director Abbas Rashid.

Thereportsaysthere are approximately 28,000 NFBE centers run by the government and private sectors that are catering to some one million students with 60pc female students` ratio.

The non-formal education sector is also offering flexible form of education to cater to needs of many out-of-school children but more centers need to function in the afternoon in order to facilitate working children, who can devote time to education only once they are free from work.The study says the NFBE can also become viable for the Early Childhood Education (ECE) because a large number of children in pre-primary and early grades (such as Kachi, grade 1 and 2) in public sector schools are usually ignored and left largely to their own devices by teachers, whose attention is mainly focused on the higher grades. `The well-supported NFBE centers will not only give better care to students but also relieve pressure on public sector schools. The centers at the local level will also address the serious transport issue,` it says.

The report also calls for providing teacher training to the NFBE teachers on a regular basis as most centers are supposed to impart teaching in multi-grade settings.