Over 7,000 out-of-school children enrolled in AJK: official

MANSEHRA: The Saibaan Development Organisation with the financial assistance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation (UNESCO) has enrolled over 7000 out-of-school- children at the 235 educational institutions of three districts of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

“The Saibaan in collaboration with UNESCO had set a target of enrolling as many as 10,000 out-of-school-children to schools and over 70 percent of them admitted to schools so far,” Sahibzada Jawad Alfaizi, the chief executive officer of Saibaan, told reporters at the central office here on Sunday.

Flanked by project manager Mohammad Asif, he said that ‘Educate a Child Programme’ was launched in Hatian, Muzafarabad and Neelum districts of AJK in 2016 and that programme was successfully underway there.

“We have enrolled as many as 7340 out-of-school-children at schools and around 45 percent of them are girls,” Alfaizi said. Speaking on the occasion, Asif said that Saibaan was also imparting training to teachers and providing schools with prefabricated classrooms.

“We have trained as many as 335 male and female teachers on the activity based learning and provided prefabricated rooms and water and sanitation facilities to around 195 schools in three targeted districts,” he added.

He said that Saibaan, a nongovernmental organisation, which works in parts of the country in education and rights of marginalised segments of society was also ensuring the sustainability of the enrolled children from the age of seven to eleven years through the school management committees having the representation of parents, teacher and local community.