PESHAWAR: The participants of a conference have urged the elected public representatives at the Local Government (LG) level to play a role in the promotion of girl’s education in the province.
They were speaking at the Provincial Local Government Conference on Girls Education.They said those who were honored by respective communities to serve leaders should concentrate on promotion of girl’s education in their respective areas.
The moot was organized by Blue Veins, a non-governmental organization, in collaboration with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Commission and Education Champion Network Pakistan.
Caretaker Minister for Local Government, Amir Durrani, Charsadda Mayor, Mufti Abdul Shakoor, elected representatives, employees of LG department and people from different walks of life attended the conference.
Welcoming the participants, Qamar Naseem, Programme Manager, Blue Vein, portrayed the dismal plight of girl’s education in KP and urged the elected representatives to serve as `watch dog’ on implementation of government policies on education promotion in their respective areas.
Qamar said in KP a staggering number of around 4.7 million children were out of schools out of which 74.4 percent are girls and 26 percent boys. He said in the merged districts, the percentage of out-of-school girls was around 90 percent, an astounding figure in regard with development of the area and country.
The speaker said for bringing all out-of-school children in educational institutions, the province needed to construct around 15000 schools which was impossible keeping in view meagre financial resources, time and cost of construction.
He said if the province has enough funds for construction of new schools, only 300 schools can be constructed in a year and the target of 15000 new schools can be achieved in around 100 years.
Qamar said we have to adopt a holistic approach of bringing all these out-of-school children at primary, middle and secondary level by utilizing our resources at optimal level and by ensuring proper implementation of policies by Local government representatives.
He suggested replicating the policy of public-private partnership being introduced in Sindh province for enrolment of out-of-school children. The annual spending of the government on each child should be paid to private schools over the condition of providing free education to them, he suggested.
Qamar appreciated the efforts made by KP Education Department in reservingenough annual budget for girl’s education. However, he continued, a lot of measures needed to be taken by government, private organizations, stakeholders and CSOs for promotion of girl’s education in the province in particular and country in general.
Former Nazim Hayatabad Township, Nawab Khan highlighted roles and resources of local government representatives. He said according to law, the LG representatives are entrusted with a lot of authority and resources, but on the ground the situation was quite the opposite.
He agreed that Nazims and Councilors can play a very effective role in promotion of education, especially of girls, in the province. Seemab Ishaq, a PhD scholar Institute of Education and Research Peshawar University apprised participants about required synergies, resources and stakeholders engagement for strengthening the effective role of Local Government inpromoting girl’s education.
Charsadda Mayor Mufti Abdul Shakoor talked about the measures being taken in his district for promotion of the girls education.He said promotion of girls’ education was not only a social but also religious responsibility and every individual has to play his role in this regard.
Provincial Minister Amir Durrani said the government was giving due attention togirls’ challenges. He said there is no doubt that girl’s education is a big challenge, but the government is providing maximum funds for the education sector. Amir Durrani held out assurance at the conference that his department would take girl’s education as a priority subject and utilize maximum resources for attainment of this goal.
