Adequate standards of living (Article 27) 69. While average household size dropped from 6.7 to 6.2 from 2003 to 2010 the percentage of households living in rented housing increased from 10 percent to 17 percent.115 People living in Male’ spend more than half of their income on rent, food and utility services.116 While 24 percent of the population was below the international poverty line USD 2 per day it will have impact on one fourth of the children in the country.117 It is also apparent that poverty and inequality rates across the country affect negatively on child development.118 The committee may wish to ask the government 1. Measures taken to facilitate equal opportunities for affordable adequate housing, basic utilities and alleviate poverty. Education, leisure and cultural activities Right to Education (Article 28) and Aims of Education (Article 29) 70. Constitution (2008) entitles right to education without any discrimination of any kind. There are also numerous policy and procedures established by the initiative of Ministry of Education (MoE) to guarantee the right to education to all children living in the country. 71. As mentioned in paragraph 204 of state report schooling from grade 1 to 12 is free for public schools and there are no exam fees, as well as books and stationeries are provided by the government. 72. Nominal government spending and nominal education spending were shown in blue and red colour respectively. It shows that the nominal state expenditure for 2013 is about 3.6 billion more than that of 2009. This is 30.7% increment in comparison to 2009 expenditure. However, when the real figures were computed in relation to the CPI index, the green line represents the result. It shows that although the nominal expenditure had an increment, the real figure did not. It was actually 0.5 billion less than that of 2009. Similarly, the real expenditure for education sector experienced a 3 percent decrease from 2009 to 2013. Government contributes sizeable proportion of its budget on education sector, however bulk of it is spent on recurrent expenditures, thus programs for quality education remain sidelined.119 Page 18 of 39