Education for all: PEF increases partner schools’ grants

Foundation aims to enrol and educate four million children over five years.

LAHORE: The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has announced an increase in the monthly grant for its partner schools with effect from September.

A statement released by the PEF said that it would pay a stipend of Rs450 per student in each of its partner elementary schools, Rs500 per student in its partner matric (arts) schools, Rs600 per student in matric (science) schools, Rs700 per student in PEF’s partner higher secondary schools (arts) and Rs900 per students enrolled in its partner higher secondary (science) schools.

Punjab Education Foundation Managing Director Nawazish Ali announced the plan while addressing a district coordination meeting (DCM) of various schools attached with the PEF, under its Foundation-Assisted School Programme on Sunday.

School owners and teachers from Jhang, Toba Tek Singh and Faisalabad attended the DCM.

The PEF MD said that its five-year expansion plan aimed to accommodate as many school-going children, aged six to 16 years, as was possible. Under the plan, the PEF will collaborate with 200 new schools under the FAS programme. It will also grant scholarships (educational vouchers) to nearly 50,000 children.

He said that the Department for International Development (DFID) would provide £70 million as aid to the PEF, to enrol and educate out-of-school children in the next five years. “We hope to be able to educate at least four million children,” said Ali.

The government’s education reforms will help students in a number of ways, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2013.