Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif app launched

Islamabad:Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar Monday launched the ‘Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif’ App through enrolling a girl student at Government Girls College Kot Hathial, commemorating International Day of Education.

The International Day of Education is observed globally on January 24 every year. ‘Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif’ (school stipends) android application has specifically been developed to enable enrolment of children from ‘Ehsaas’ eligible households at their doorstep.

During the event, Dr. Sania herself enrolled a girl in the school stipends program. She sat with children, mothers, and teachers and guided them about the end-to-end digital enrollment process through the newly launched android app.

Education offers the poorest families a ladder out of poverty and a path to prosperity. That is why ‘Ehsaas’ is focusing on improving the education access of the poorest families through its school stipend programme.

Facilitating people to self-enroll their children under the programme, we have also introduced the app today. Using this app, families can enroll their children themselves at their doorstep without visiting any office, said Dr. Sania Nishtar while speaking to the media.

In the next three years, the Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif programme intends to bring 10 million deserving children into its fold from 160 districts of Pakistan. To date, over 6.7 million children have already been enrolled. The purpose of the ‘Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif’ Programme is twofold - to assist vulnerable households and reduce the number of out-of-school children.

Currently, there are 18.7 million out-of-school children in Pakistan. According to the ‘Ehsaas’ policy, ‘Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif’ gives a higher amount of stipend to girls as compared to boys. Stipends are given from primary to the higher secondary level to children aged 4-22 years from families eligible in the ‘Ehsaas’ ecosystem.

The programme encourages parents to send their children, particularly girls to schools. All payments are linked to a satisfactory school/college attendance of children. Our government has also introduced ‘Ehsaas’ graduation bonus for girls completing the 5th grade to address the issue of girls dropping out of school, stated Dr. Sania.

Today, Ehsaas is also hosting a panel discussion on role of conditional cash transfers in improving Human Capital Development in Pakistan. The virtual event will bring together Dr. Christian Turner, British High Commissioner to Pakistan; Najy Behnhassine, country director, the World Bank; Yong Ye, country director, Asian Development Bank; Aida Girma - country representative, Unicef; and Director-General Ehsaas Conditional Cash Transfers, Naveed Akbar.

This year’s International Day of Education is a platform to showcase the most important transformations that have to be nurtured to realise everyone’s fundamental right to education and build a more sustainable, inclusive, and peaceful future.