CM orders enrolment of 250,000 more children in schools by next academic year

Qaim Ali Shah sets target for Sindh Education Foundation

Karachi

The chief minister told the Sindh Education Foundation on Saturday to ensure that it enrolled 250,000 more children in schools for the next academic year.

Qaim Ali Shah was presiding over a meeting of the Board of Governors of SEF at the Chief Minister’s House.

SEF managing director Naheed Shah Durrani told the participants of the meeting that foundation was entering into a strategic partnership with many credible and reputable organisations including The Citizen Foundation, the Indus Resource Centre, the Sindh Madrassa Board, Aware, the Indus Education Foundation, the OSAR Education, the Tehzeeb Foundation, the Green Crescent Trust, the BRAC Pakistan, and the Education Fund for Sindh for pooling resources and and implementation of its projects.

She added that these partnerships will benefit the marginalised and vulnerable children of the province.

The SEF managing director said the foundation was endeavoring to enroll 250,000 additional children in schools by the beginning of next academic year (2016-17).

She added that the quality for SEF was non-negotiable and it would not be compromised in pursuance of increasing enrolment.

Briefing the members about the programmmes being run by the foundation; Durrani said according to different survey reports, there were around 2.5 million adolescents in Sindh who might have not dropped out of school or had never been to school.

These adolescents, especially the vulnerable street children; bonded labourers, etc, aged between nine and 18 years, require combined accelerated learning and skill development programmes.

The SEF has proposed launching an adult and adolescent learning programme for this segment of society which the chief minister, who is also the chairman of SEF board, has approved.

Presently, the SEF is exploring options of partnerships with some reputable organisations already working with the vulnerable segments of the society.

Durrani further said Sindh, like other provinces of the country, faced a large vacuum in post-primary education as the participation rate in post-primary education was alarmingly low.

To tackle this challenging situation, the SEF has proposed launching a programme to set up middle and high schools through partnerships with private schools.

The proposal includes focusing on the districts where the participation in post-primary education was comparatively lower.

The chief minister appreciated the SEF efforts and instructed the relevant departments to support the foundation in meet its targets.

Among others, additional chief secretary (development) Ajaz Ali Khan, SEF BoG members Dr Kaiser Bengali and Dr Qazi Masood, and special education secretary Alia Shahid attended the meeting.