Ghani seeks NGOs’ assistance to boost literacy, school enrollment

Saeed Ghani says no country can progress if its children are kept deprived of education

KARACHI: Sindh Information, Archives and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani has urged charitable organisations to extend support to the Sindh government in ensuring the provision of education to the children of labourers across the province.

He sought their assistance, saying it would help the provincial government realise its vision of the universalisation of social security, as he addressed the concluding session of the Children's Carnival and inter-school competition at Arts Council in Karachi on Saturday night. The event was held to mark the silver jubilee of the foundation of the Green Crescent Trust (GCT), a non-profit organisation that is running more than 150 charitable schools in rural areas of Sindh.

Speaking on the occasion, the information minister said that the Sindh government required the support of organisations like GCT to meet the colossal target of educating the children of labourers across the province.

The government will "bear all the expenses while seeking the assistance of organisations like GCT to meet the target," he maintained, adding that GCT and other similar organisations would be taken on board once the provincial government finalised a policy in this regard.

He said the government was obliged to lend complete support to people in the private sector who spend their time, money and resources to educate children coming from low-income backgrounds, as they were sharing the state's responsibility. Particularly referring to GCT, the minister said that the organisation had the government's full support for accomplishing its mission of educating underprivileged children and "eradicating the menace of out-of-school children."

The minister acknowledged that no country could progress if its children were kept deprived of education.

Also speaking on the occasion, GCT CEO Zahid Saeed urged the government to declare an educational emergency in the country to "deal with the alarming situation of out-of-school children." He said that 4.2 million children were out of school in Sindh alone, adding that solving the problem would be "a real challenge for the government," for which it would it would need to spend funds in a "transparent and efficient manner."

Saeed projected that the per capita income of Pakistan would increase five times if the government were to work with dedication towards improving the education standards in the country and reducing the number of out-of-school children, as was seen in case of China.

The GCT CEO also suggested establishing a consortium of non-governmental organisations with similar ideologies to provide education to underprivileged children in Sindh.

He informed the audience that GCT had begun its journey 25 years ago, establishing schools in remote and rural areas of Sindh where there were no public or private schools. He said GCT had established its first school, which had only one teacher, in a remote area of Karachi. Since then, the number of teachers at schools being run by GCT has increased to 1400, he said. Saeed said that 29,000 children were currently enrolled in GCT schools and the organisation aimed to increase the total strength of students to 100,000 during the course of next five years.

Karachi Commissioner Iftikhar Shallwani, Vice Admiral (retd) Arifullah Hussani, Arts Council President Muhammad Ahmed Shah and others also spoke on the occasion.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2019.