K-P, WFP agree on NMTD girl’s education support plan

Cash stipend will be provided to families of girls who enroll in schools

PESHAWAR:

The provincial government on Friday launched an education support programme for adolescent girl students in the newly merged tribal district.

The pilot project aims to provide income support to families of adolescent girls so that they can meet their food and nutrition needs during the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) while continuing their schooling.

In this regard, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Education Minister Akbar Ayub Khan and World Food Programme (WFO) country director Chris Kaye on Friday oversaw the signing of an agreement at the Committee Room of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department (ESED).

Under the agreement, some 21,000 girls studying in grades six to 10, enrolled in 288 government girls’ high schools in all the seven newly merged districts and six sub-divisions will be provided with the cash assistance.

“We are initiating this pilot project with the support of the World Food Programme, envisioning a large-scale provincial cash stipend programme where every enrolled child will be assisted with financial assistance,” said the Akbar.

He added that more than a million children between the ages of 4 and 14-years-of-age are out of school in the newly merged tribal districts while a whopping 67 per cent of the population there are unable to read or write (with the figure rising to 87 per cent for women).

But with schools expected to resume from the middle of September, after remaining closed for nearly seven months.

“An educated woman is aware of her rights and is less likely to become a victim of domestic or sexual abuse,” said Kaye.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2020.