Education for all: Model schools to be set up in 59 districts

NCHD to initiate programme to achieve 100 percent primary enrollment.

ISLAMABAD:

To achieve the Education For All target, the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) is launching model union council schools in 59 districts.

The five-year plan aims to achieve 100 percent primary enrollment in districts with less than 50 percent literacy rate across the country. Model schools will be established in areas where there is no government facility for primary education.

NCHD Director General (DG) Khusro Pervaiz Khan said funds have been approved in the new fiscal year. “We’ll targetwomen and local elders who are influential in their area to persuade people to send their children to school,” he said.

“Educating children aged five to nine, Second Chance Learning will help educate children in the 14 plus age bracket.” Land for schools will be acquired from the community, he added.

Talking about the role of provincial governments, Khan said a memorandum of understanding will be signed for the provision of stationery, curriculum and other facilities.



Schools will be built in 14 districts in Punjab, 11 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 13 in Sindh, 11 in Balochistan, five in Gilgit-Baltistan and four in Azad Jammu and Kashmir under the programme.

“After a go-ahead from the government, NCHD will start working on the plan in collaboration with the provinces which will be ultimately responsible for the project,” the DG concluded. NCHD is a not-for-profit government organisation aiming to improve access to basic education and healthcare in the country’s poorest communities and fighting illiteracy in 134 districts.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2013.