A staggering 24 million Pakistani children are out of school, a new government report showed, laying bare the state of education in a country where around a quarter of the population is believed to be under 16.

Of the 50.8 million children aged five to 16 in the country, 47 percent do not receive an education, according to the annual Pakistan Education Statistics report for 2014-15, a rare example in Pakistan of a government document exposing a stark reality.