About 25m kids still out of school

LAHORE
About 25.02 million boys and girls in Pakistan between the ages of five and 16 still remain out of schools. Striving to reduce this number, Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) and Life Skills for Kids (LSK) teams organised a day of fun-filled, interactive activities, and discussions for the students enrolled at the LSK schools in accordance with the 5th anniversary of the Right to Education Act-Article 25-A that just recently passed.
According to a press release issued on Wednesday, Hassan Saleem Rana, Project Coordinator, LSK, while talking about the project said: “The aim of the project is to provide life skill based education to children who are intensely involved in the waste collection”.
The LSK project aims at eliminating the worst forms of child labour and also providing them with the life skills opportunities to help them maximise the options for safer livelihood. For this purpose, ITA has been entrusted the task to establish six schools: (i) Basti Niaz Baig, (ii) Talli Wala Khoo (iii) Mahmood Boti (iv) Gujjar Colony (v) Chandraya Road (vi) Engineers Town/Tibba Pind.
At present, the ITA has managed to establish two schools at Basti Niaz Baig and Talli Wala Khoo. The remaining schools will be established by the end of May 2015.
Waste pickers, ranging from five to 14 years of age, are entitled to get admission at the LSK Schools. Currently, the school at Niaz Baig is having the total enrollment of 100 students whereas school at Talli Wala Khoo has no less than 120 students enrolled.
The LSK Schools offer two sessions-Morning (9:00am to 1:00pm) and Afternoon (1:30pm to 5:00pm); therefore, two separate sessions are held at the LSK schools in the morning and afternoon respectively.
The session started with a motivational discussion whereby children were made to understand the importance of attaining education in the light of Islamic teachings; wage and lifestyle comparisons of an educated and uneducated man. The children were given the opportunity to share their experience of the transition in their life from waste picking to coming to a school every day. They also shared their hopes and dreams for the future. Faisal, an LSK student who lives in the slums of Basti Niaz Baig, said: “I used to collect bottles and paper but I have told my parents that I will not pick garbage now. I will go to school, study hard and become a barra aadami.”