World Children’s Day: Officials vow to promote girls’ education

PESHAWAR: An engagement session was arranged to mark the World Children’s Day with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education (KPESE) vowed to push for integrated measures to help girls have access to education. The World Children’s Day is celebrated every year on November 20, which offers an inspirational entry-point to advocate, promote and celebrate children’s rights, translating into dialogues and actions to build a better world for them.

The Blue Veins, a local non-governmental organization working to promote girls’ education, and Pakistan Education Champion Network (PEC) had jointly organised the event.

It aimed to discuss and explore the ongoing and planned strategies and actions by KPESE for enrolling out-of-school children and to make efforts for the advancement of girls’ education.

The event was attended by representatives of the Planning Section and Directorate of KPESE including Chief Planning Officer, Senior Planning Officers, Assistant, Additional and Deputy Directors of the Directorate. The speakers from KPESE discussed the initiatives taken by the government to increase enrollment.

Addressing the session, Muhammad Hashim, Chief Planning Officer KPESE said, “KP Education department has been playing an active role for the advancement of girls’ education.” “To strengthen enrollment and retention of girls in schools, we have prioritized a number of schemes like establishment of 70 Girls Secondary Schools, provision of free textbooks and stipends in merged districts, rehabilitation, upgradation and second shift to increase enrollment capacity in public sector schools,” he added.

Senior Planning Officer KPESE, Imran Kazim said that COVID-19 disrupted the education of students and caused problems for the Education Department.

The pandemic disproportionality affected the progress and ongoing efforts of the department, he added.

“The department is committed to expanding education budgets to mitigate the crisis. We ensure effective spending of the allocated budget to achieve the desired objectives.” Noor Alam Khan, Senior Planning Officer-I KPESE, added.

Blue Veins Program Officer Sana Ahmad said the World Health Organization in 2020 had indicated that learning poverty in Pakistan can go up to 79 percent as a result of school closure due to COVID-19 pandemic.

“Girls’ education has been specifically challenged by the pandemic, especially for girls from low income households. We need to address the deeper structural challenges and lead strategic interventions to address the limitations for girls in access to secondary education in the Province,” she added

Our correspondent from Mansehra adds: The Saibaan Development Organisation, in collaboration with the Kindernothilfe (LNH), organised an event to mark the World Children’s Day in the Dadar area of Siran valley in Mansehra.

“We should give due rights to children to make them beneficial citizens,” Sahibzada Jawad Alfaizi, the chief executive officer SDO, told the gathering attended among others by the children and community members.

The children through speech competition, tug-of-war and other games highlighted the issues faced by them in the society.

“It is unfortunate that millions of children are out of schools as social welfare organisations should ensure their enrolment,” Alfaizi said.

He said that his organisation was working on the different projects including the Aawaz-ll to end child labour and enroll children at schools in the district.

Social activist Faraz Khan Swati also addressed the gathering and said that society should socially boycott those involved in heinous crimes against children.