82,166 children enrolled in 5681 feeder schools across Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) has enrolled 82,166 children in 5681 feeder schools across the country.

This was stated by the Chairperson NCHD Senator (retd) Razina Alam Khan while chairing 42nd Commission meeting held here Monday.

The meeting was attended by Roshan Khurshid Bharucha (Member), Dr. Sono Khangharani (Member), Dr. Mubashir Bhatti (Member), Rafiq Tahir (Ex-Officio Member-Joint Education Advisor Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training), Abid Hussain (Director General-NCHD), Zulfiqar Ahmad (Chief Executive Officer-PHDF) and Ejaz Mehdi.

She said the NCHD was vehemently engaged in enrollment drive with the support of provincial governments, donor agencies and parents all over the country.

The Chairperson expressed her concern over the fact that 57 million people in the country are illiterate while 24 million children never go to school.

She further deplored that out of 26 million children who are enrolled, only 33 percent reach the matriculation level.

While discussing the grim educational statistic in Pakistan, Chairperson NCHD said the primary net enrollment is 72 percent out of which 33 percent are dropouts.

The government was alive to the situation and taking practical steps to bring all out of school children into the educational institutions.

She informed that NCHD has imparted education to 3.84 million adults in 164,190 literacy centers and now the project of bringing the students of seminaries into the regular education program was gaining support in FATA and rest of the country.

The project would introduce science, mathematics, social studies and english in the curriculum of these students to help them attain academic proficiency up to class 5th, she informed.

She said that project of Deeni Madaras (seminaries) would help enable the madaras students to achieve academic excellence in formal and modern educational subjects.

The NCHD project of formal education in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) would assist the existing seminaries to prepare their children for primary education, she said.

Briefing the commission members on impact of NCHD projects under donor funding, she said the following projects were being operational such as,”Mainstreaming of Deeni Madaras” in 100 madaras of FATA, AJK & ICT with a total budget of Rs 50 million to educate 2500 children.

“Every Child in School Initiative (ECSI)” operating in 10 districts of KPK and 10 districts of South Punjab with a budget of Rs 193 million and Rs 9.2 million respectively.

“Strengthening policy and training for retention through intensive enrollment campaign and dropout mechanism” would be carried out with the financial assistance of UNICEF with a budget of Rs 50 million,      “Own a School Initiative program” established 25 schools and enrolled 1254 children and provision of primary education in KPK through community feeder schools would cover 6 districts, she said.

The Chairperson NCHD stressed the need of literacy with special focus on the national level based on skill development, empowerment of downtrodden, human development and character building.

She emphasized the need of students’ retention in schools along with massive enrollment drive.