WFP offers cash to girls attending secondary school

Students showing 80% biometric attendance will get a stipend

PESHAWAR: The World Food Programme (WFP) has launched its first cash-assistance for secondary school girls programme in Pakistan while issuing biometric attendance data part of its support to the Fata Secretariat’s education programme.

About 15,000 girls in 179 middle and high schools in seven Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata) and the Frontier Regions will take part in the innovative programme. Girls who attend at least 80 per cent of classes each month will receive a stipend of Rs1,000.

Before each monthly cash disbursement, students and their mothers will undergo an awareness session on nutrition and general health and hygiene within the family.

The government chose to use biometrics to ensure that the girls attending classes are the same ones receiving the stipend at the end of the month. Moreover, it will also free up teachers from manual record keeping. The machines recording girls’ fingerprints are solar powered with a battery which is securely stored in the classroom.

“We are proud to support the Fata Secretariat whose education agenda recognises the importance of girls’ education in society,” said WFP Country Director Finbarr Curran, adding that, “This programme will encourage girls to continue their study to secondary level and help keep them in school. This is key to the development of the region.”

“WFP is delighted to team up with Australia and Canada on this government-led initiative.”

“Australia is pleased to support WFP’s programme enabling underprivileged families to send their children, particularly girls, to school. Investing in education is essential for every country’s successful social and economic development,” Australian High Commissioner Margaret Adamson said.

Fata suffers from exceptionally low levels of female literacy and most girls of high school age are not in class.

WFP has been providing education support in FATA since 2008 and has assisted nearly 300,000 students in 1,700 government primary and secondary schools in partnership with Unicef and Unesco.

Moreover, WFP has established a feedback mechanism at each school to involve the local community in monitoring the schools which are receiving assistance under the programme, a standard practice for WFP-initiated projects.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2017.