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Friday March 29, 2024

TCF, Mishal Pakistan sign MoU to create awareness about out-of-school kids

By Our Correspondent
August 23, 2019

The Citizens Foundation (TCF) and Mishal Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding to create awareness among the general public about out-of-school children through print, electronic and online mediums.

Through this collaboration, the TCF and Mishal committed to enhance quality reporting on out-of-school children by building the capacity of journalists reporting on education and social development-related issues.

Mishal and the TCF will jointly develop a capacity-building initiative by engaging senior journalists on multiple forums across the country. Both the TCF and Mishal aim to identify and mainstream the issue of out-of-school children among the general public through media. The organisations have joined hands to conduct training sessions with senior journalists in Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta. The purpose is to design strategic media trainings that provide data-sets for journalists to report on the issue with evidence-based journalism.

This collaboration will complement the efforts of the TCF to implement changes in the education system that are necessary to bring children to school, and to achieve the unanimous goal of keeping children in school.

Mishal Pakistan will also create special category at the AGAHI Awards 2019, Pakistan’s most sought after journalism recognition to include “the Reporter of the Year Award, Reporting on Out-of-School Children”.

Gaps in service provision at all education levels are a major constraint to education access. Socio-cultural demand-side barriers combined with economic factors and supply-related issues, such as the availability of adequate and standardised school facilities, together hamper access and retention of certain marginalised groups, in particular adolescent girls.

Isfandyar Inayat, general manager, TCF, said, “Economic development of a nation is closely related to the development of its human resources. Our partnership with Mishal Pakistan aims to spotlight Pakistan’s education crisis that is affecting the ability of our children to equip themselves with the skills and knowledge needed for effective participation and contribution to our national development. We are thankful to Mishal Pakistan for stepping up to help us in this cause.”

Speaking on the occasion, Amir Jahangir, CEO of Mishal Pakistan, said, “Education is the right of every child as envisioned in the Constitution of Pakistan’s Article 25-A, which promises that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to children of age 5 to 16 years. However, its provision falls well below an adequate standard. Through this initiative both the organisations want to bring public policy focus on the Right to Education by raising awareness on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4 and SDG5).”

According to an estimation by UNICEF, Pakistan has the second highest number of out-of-school children in the world. Around 22.8 million children between the age of 5 and 16, 44 percent of the total population of this age group, are not in schools.

The TCF is a professionally managed, non-profit organisation set up in 1995 by a group of citizens who wanted to bring about a positive social change through education. Twenty-four years later, the TCF is now one of Pakistan’s leading organisations in the field of education for the less privileged.

The TCF has a long history of working in partnership with the private sector to find new and innovative solutions to provide education to the less privileged children of Pakistan. The TCF is a non-profit organizsation, which believes education is the right of every child and not a privilege for the affluent.

Established in 1996, the TCF has been providing affordable quality primary and secondary education to the impoverished children living in rural areas and urban slums across Pakistan. Current enrolment is 252,000 children from low-income families, through 1,567 school units. The TCF is also the winner of the Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2015 at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Mishal Pakistan is Pakistan’s leading strategic communication and design company. It is also the country Partner Institute of the Future of Economic Progress System Initiative, World Economic Forum. Mishal is responsible to generate primary data on more than 100 indicators measuring Pakistan’s competitiveness.

Mishal’s foremost domain of activity is behaviour change communication, strategic communication with a spotlight on media and perception management, and future scenario development using methodologies and resources that service the lifestyle and social needs of individuals, their families, the communities they live in and ultimately their larger domains. Education, Entertainment and Enlightenment constitute the ultimate key to human growth and advancement. The Mishal philosophy takes its birth from this very principle, the ultimate vision being to cater for the growing need of meaningful and focused communication outreach.