Sindh’s four-year education plan aims to get children to school

Karachi
An ambitious — yet comprehensive — plan to improve enrolment rates and the overall quality of learning, the Sindh Education Sector Plan (SESP) 2014-2018 aims to get out-of-school children to study, either in government facilities or informal establishments.
The SESP envisages increasing the overall enrolment rate in the province from 32 to 45 percent, with a minimum of 30 percent enrolment in each district, according to officials in the education department.
The plan aims to increase overall enrolment in schools by separately raising attendance from 59 to 77 percent in primary classes, 34 to 50 percent in elementary classes and 23 to 35 percent for secondary and higher secondary classes, while maintaining an overall increase of between three and four percent every year till 2018.
“Sindh has become the first province to come up with a concrete plan for providing free and fair education to children under Article 25-A of the Constitution,” said the official. “If executed as planned, out-of-school children in the province will benefit immensely.”
Elaborating further on
the SESP, he said its execution called for enhancing equitable access to education at all
tiers, while improving the quality of learning and taking measures to ensure good governance and service delivery by a capacity overhaul at all levels.
The plan was launched in collaboration with Unicef, European Union Global Partnership for Education and the support of local and international partners.
The effort was welcomed and praised by stakeholders and the civil society. Adeel Aslam, the chief executive Officer of Education Fund for Sindh (EFS), a private not-for-profit organisation, commended the government’s efforts. He said the plan had the potential to bring out wonders in the province’s education sector, if, it was implemented properly.
However, Aslam, said civil society could help the government achieve its targets. “If you talk about us, the EFS has enrolled over 100,000 out-of-school children in the past one-and-a-half year,” he said. “Out of them 70,000 were enrolled through our Education Voucher Scheme while the rest were admitted in schools through supporting organisations.”
He said so far, the EFS was working in 46 union councils, 16 towns and six districts of Karachi, besides
Khairpur and Kamber-Shahdadkot districts. “In 2015, we plan to begin working in 45 more union councils of Karachi and get around 50,000 more children enrolled in schools.”
Meanwhile, a leading educationist, Dr Sajid Ali, who is an assistant professor at the Institute for Educational Development of the Aga Khan University, said the provincial government had taken an inclusive approach for developing the SESP.
“This approach has resulted in a document which contains workable objectives supported by detailed implementation framework. Due to the involvement of all stakeholders, the plan enjoys a wider ownership. If the government is able to follow the plan, it will improve Sindh’s standing on all educational indicators,” he remarked. “We cannot afford to sit idle and let our people remain uneducated.”