Pakistani girls to benefit from Michelle Obama’s education initiative

ISLAMABAD: About two million girls in Pakistan will benefit from the US First Lady’s education initiative recently launched with an investment of $70 million.
The United States announced a new partnership with Pakistan to increase girls’ enrollment in schools during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington.
US First Lady Michelle Obama at a special event held at the White House, which was attended by Begum Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz, said she was proud to announce that the US will build more than a dozen new schools and rehabilitate hundreds of others in Pakistan.
“That is 200,000 girls who will have a chance to fulfill their promise — just like our daughters have that opportunity — and will become the next generation of doctors, teachers and entrepreneurs,” the US First Lady said.
The project through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will construct and rehabilitate schools in conflict and disaster-affected areas, and will provide access to basic education for adolescent girls among internally displaced communities.
Also, training, scholarships and internships will be arranged for adolescent girls to create paths for higher education, entrepreneurship and employment.
The project will provide scholarships for girls to attend a year of high school in the United States and live with a host family.
For the under-represented girls of 13 to 18 years of age, a foundation of English language skills will be developed through two-year programs of after-school classes and intensive immersion activities.
The project will also create economic opportunities through skill building and training, securing income and employment for girls, and expanding the skilled labor force with public and private partners.
The underprivileged Pakistani high school girls will be given opportunity to study at top US universities to explore a wide range of professions.The project will enrich the teaching and learning environment through improved reading materials and community mobilization.
This will engage civil society and communities through small grants for innovative activities to improve equitable access to quality education, and build local capacity to improve adolescent girls’ education and empowerment.
The US investment in girls’ education will help the many adolescent girls in Pakistan who still face barriers to education from an early age due to poverty, cultural norms, violence, insecurity, and geographic isolation.
The Government of Pakistan, as announced by Prime Minister Sharif in Oslo in July this year, will double spending for education in Pakistan, from two to four percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2018 and increase girls’ enrollment in school.
The government will also increase the provision of female teachers and necessary physical factors such as boundary walls and adequate toilets in girls’ schools.
Prior to his visit to the United States, Nawaz Sharif launched the Prime Minister’s Education Initiative that includes a comprehensive plan for upgradation of infrastructure, setting up of Information Technology and science laboratories, human resource management, teachers training, curriculum improvement and bio-metric attendance system at the public sector schools and colleges across Islamabad.