Enrolment of Afghan children starts in K-P

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Elementary and Secondary Education Department has started enrollment of Afghan refugee children in schools.

An official of the department told APP on Sunday that out of school Afghan refugee children were being enrolled in schools and a plan has been finalised for it.

Under the Schools Readiness Program (SRP), he said initially Afghan refugee students were being enrolled in 35 public schools across the province, including Peshawar.

He said, likewise, under Post Primary Readiness Program, the refugee children are being admitted in 10 schools in Peshawar, Nowshera and Swabi.

Under Education Sector Plan (ESP) the government has embarked upon special initiatives and reforms in K-P geared towards development, digitization and improving service delivery in the education system.

Under ESP Rs166.47 billion investment was made by provincial government during 2019-20, yielding concrete results by reducing the number of out-of-school children in five to 16 years age bracket.

“The number of out-of-school children was reduced from 23 per cent in 2016-17 to 20 per cent in 2018. The enrollment in public schools since 2013 has been increased by 16 per cent with substantial enhancement of 2.44 per cent in 2019-20 while teachers attendance has been improved from 91 to 92 per cent after introduction of Online Action Management System (OAMS),” he said.

Effective monitoring resulted in reduction in an unauthorized absence of teachers to 1.63 per cent from 3.4 per cent in 2016-17.

“The special spring enrollment drive has been started across the province to bring out-of-school children back to school. The second shift in 1,123 government schools has been started in K-P including merged tribal districts after recruitment of 5,000 teachers through parents teachers councils (PTC),” he said, adding that over 25,000 students had already been enrolled in these schools.

Rs337 million were released for recruitment of 1,240 teachers through PTC last year while the recruitment process of 3,000 school leaders has been started.

In addition to recruitment of about 72,576 teachers for different cadres, every school would be provided a tablet PCs for education of young children.

As per the ‘education for all’ vision government schools were being equipped with furniture worth Rs6 billion that would facilitate 2.6 million children across the province.

Another official said that establishment of digital laboratories in over 50 schools under early age program, 5,000 early childhood education (ECE) rooms were constructed while 100 ECE rooms are being built in underdeveloped merged tribal districts.

Under the smart school Initiative an MoU has been signed with Hundreds of Original Projects for Employment (HOPE’87) to set up smart schools besides digitization of education activities.

In merged tribal districts, 308 schools were constructed and upgraded while 100 ECE rooms and 240 science laboratories are being constructed besides 733 ECE rooms approved during the last three years.

In merged tribal districts 31 new schools were set up and upgraded last year while 75 new schools would be established and 1,100 schools would be solarized during 2021-22.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2022.