Foundation Assisted Schools Programme under which 2,150 schools are operating in the province too will now allow evening classes. PHOTO: FILE
The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) announced last week that it would be piloting evening classes to educate the needy children under the Education Voucher Scheme.
Speaking to The Express Tribune, PEF Additional Director Communications Qudratullah said more than 160,000 children were currently getting education under the same scheme.
“We have granted permission to partner schools to hold evening classes to accommodate children,” he said. Qudratullah said evening classes would help working children continue their studies.
Foundation Assisted Schools Programme under which 2,150 schools are operating in the province too will now allow evening classes.
“The idea [of evening classes] is not new. It has already been implemented in Sindh,” said Ahmed Ali, a research fellow at the Institute of Policy and Social Sciences (ISAPS).
“In Sindh, retired teachers are preferred to teach evening classes. Another alternative is to give additional incentives to morning shift teachers.”
He said a large number of teachers gave private tuitions. “The key is to attract them to evening classes at those schools.”
According to the School Education Department (SED), the Punjab needs 78,000 new classrooms to accommodate the out-of-school children.
A policy brief on urbanisation and education released recently by the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative and the SED recommended that the government utilise the existing resources to enroll 15 million out-of-school children in the province.
Ali said evening classes could not only help educate working children but also adults.
Under a similar project by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) from 2002 to 2007, more than 20,000 children were taught in government schools in the afternoon.
Government schools were used as community learning centres.
“It is such a waste not to use schools for the larger part of the day,” said Baela Raza Jamil, the ITA director programmes.
The ITA is surveying out-of-school children in three districts. It plans to educate 2,500 such children in each district.
Jamil said government schools should be operated in the afternoon as well.
“With the limited resources, we have to ensure optimal usage of what infrastructure we have… so instead of building new classrooms, we shall focus on improving the current infrastructure.”
Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) leaders said unless the government introduced incentive-based educational programmes for these children, adding school shifts would not be useful.
PTU General Secretary Rana Liaquat Ali said nearly 10 schools in Lahore had had introduced evening classes on and off but the exercise had not been successful.
In Punjab, he said, the exercise had not been very successful.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2014.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
An approach to address the education emergency in Pakistan:
Its a two level problem not only its about the quality of education but also about the opportunities for the students after they complete school/college. Specially in rural areas. Where only jobs available are the govnt Jobs at the discretion of the MNA/MPA. Alot of work have been going on level 1 that is quality of educatio. Lets give a chance to the another solution. We see the solution to this problem in a completely different way, instead of a top down or bottom up approach, a bridge should be built from the center. By educating and creating opportunities for children who have passed some primary education. The key audience for this hypothesis can be students who have passed metric but cannot afford higher education or are forced to work due to their current social or economic constraints. The principle of this hypothesis is based on Social Business Principle, where young people can work and learn at the same time, the project being self-sustaining and reinvesting later in other social issues such as primary education, health, financing, etc.
It is based on the outsourcing and off-shoring model, where people can work online on projects (Such as data entry and data punching, graphic designing, software development [later stages] and earn a better living). Learning would commence in a college/university style environment.
Though, there have been other such initiatives in the past, most of them are related to establishing a cottage industry, followed by micro-franchising. We’re planning not to setup a product industry, but a service industry, which primarily focuses on the important of technical education, such that it becomes a trend builder for future generations. This will not only create jobs but help the students economically which is a short term solution. In long term it will create a better quality of life for the whole group and this will pass on to their families, to which the society can look up to as being an advantage of being educated and Self Sufficient. This might stop the school dropout rate and the youth will continue their studies and be part of this group of individuals. It will create an example for all the other students to follow their lead and lead them to a path of better living and well being in the society.
I call this project Being Ghalib Initiative i.e. ‘being predominant’. For more details visit: http://www.facebook.com/BeingGhalib