At the Tanjai Cheena school in northwest Pakistan students squeeze into makeshift classrooms where plastic tarps serve as walls and electricity is sparse, as a surging population overstretches the country’s fragile education system. With birth control and family planning virtually unheard of in this ultraconservative region, the ill-equipped public school system has not kept up with population growth. And each year the country gains three to four million more people, overburdening public services from schools to hospitals. “This is emergency education,” said Faisal Khalid, a local director at the education department in Swat. The stakes are high in a country where education has long been neglected and received little in the way of funding as Pakistan focused on fighting militancy.

Source: Egypt Independent December 14, 2018 03:00 UTC