Education sector plan for Islamabad launched

Islamabad
The Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on Monday launched the Education Sector Plan for Islamabad to provide basic education to all local children.
The launching ceremony was held at a hotel, where people from different walks of life showed up in large numbers.
The ESP is the result of a two years long analytical process and concerted efforts of the CADD with the technical assistance of National Basic Education Policy Programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and being implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH.
The plan has been developed in consultation with all stakeholders including both external and internal partners from the education community such as the Federal Directorate of Education, private sector and National Education Assessment System.
Based on the principles enshrined in the National Education Policy 2009 and the obligations stipulated in the 18th Constitutional Amendment as well as the then prime minister’s directives to make Islamabad a model education city, it focuses on the provision of basic education to children of five to 16 years of age in Islamabad Capital Territory and proposes some interventions for the institutionalisation of early childhood education in ICT.
Areas such as non-formal education, special education and dealing with education in emergencies are highlighted in the document.
While launching the ESP, Minister of State for CADD Barrister Usman Ibrahim lauded the German support for the ESP development.
He said work on the provision of basic education to all children in Islamabad Capital Territory had begun and the ESP would lay a platform to strategically plan and implement things on it.
The minister invited everyone to join hands to implement the ESP in its true spirit to make ICT a role model for the rest of the country.
CADD secretary Khalid Hanif, in his opening remarks, stressed the need for improvement in imparting quality education.
He said the ESP had focused on widened and equitable access to education for all children and youths of school age in ICT; improved quality of education to cater to the total range of social and economic needs of the individual and society as a whole; improved governance and management of the education administration and delivery system of the education sector.
Former CADD deputy educational adviser, Dr Tajammal Hussain Shah, gave a presentation on the ESP with a focus on key strategic educational interventions on access, quality and governance. He also identified budget requirements of the ESP along with challenges.