Right to schooling: ‘Public interventions improving private education’

PEF chairman says teacher training has helped improve quality of education.

LAHORE: “Education helps foster universal principles of peaceful coexistence and respect for humanity, and free quality education is the right of every child in the country”, Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) Chairman Raja Anwar said on Sunday. He was speaking to a 12-member delegation of PEF partner school principals at his residence.

He claimed that the PEF schools had been performing well to deliver education to children who did not have the means to be educated in mainstream schools.

Anwar expressed his satisfaction that the PEF model of public-private partnership had been promoting ‘child-friendly schooling’. He said the model was playing a leading role in promoting education in marginalised sections of the society.

He said the PEF had facilitated its partners through useful interventions, and strengthened low-fee private schools.

The PEF chairman said the foundation had provided its partners with subject specialists under the subject-based support programme in various districts. He added that the PEF was helping improve overall quality of education at partner schools through a sustainable teacher-training mechanism. He mentioned that the Quality Assurance Test (QAT) was being given annually at partner private schools.

“The ultimate goal is to give the best education to budding students so that they can play a role in nation-building”, Anwar said.

He said education was the most basic and important right, which should be accessible to each and every child. He said education could enable underprivileged children to break through the barrier of poverty.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2014.