Reforming education: Ministry to engage development partners

Strategy to be thrashed out to enrol out-of-school children in formal and non-formal schools.

ISLAMABAD: The education ministry has agreed to team up with public sector organisations and development partners for bringing radical changes in education system to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs).

This was decided at a meeting that was chaired by Minister of State for Federal Education and Professional Training, Balighur Rehman, and also attended by representatives of the American Refugee Committee, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

It was also decided to thrash out a strategy to enrol out-of-school children in formal and non-formal schools across the country.

At the meeting, various approaches and strategies were discussed to bring reforms in non-formal basic education, besides strengthening mechanisms for second chance learning for the over-aged children, who wanted to start formal education through accelerated learning programmes (ALPs).

They also discussed the need for incorporating functional literacy (pre-vocational skills) in primary education, besides establishing technical high schools in the country.

During the meeting, it was agreed that public sector organisations such as the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), the Basic Education Community Schools Project (BECS) and other development partners will work closely for the overall improvement in education sector, which is teetering almost on the brink of collapse.

It was also decided that all stakeholders would be engaged to benefit from each others’ best practices and experiences to develop joint programmes to bring in maximum number of out-of-school children into schools at the earliest.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2014.