Education ministry, Unicef agree on further cooperation

Islamabad : A Unicef delegation led by Catherine Russell, the Executive Director met with Federal Minister for Education, Professional Training, National Heritage and Culture Shafqat Mahmood.

They discussed initiatives taken during COVID-19 to ensure safe school reopening, continuity of learning and to mitigate the learning losses by the ministry. Key challenges like the suffering of learning levels, increasing of dropout rate, enrolment of out of school children focusing especially on girls also came under discussion.

The two also exchanged views on stunted growth of the children and launching of school meal programmes that may help to improve children's physical as well as mental health.

The minister said his ministry and Unicef had good working relations in matters related to the education sector. He said the ministry selected Unicef for procuring and supplies of hygiene kits of cost of $9 million. Unicef is also collaborating with the ministry for developing a distance learning framework.

The Unicef has also conducted a study on the impact of COVID-19 on education in Pakistan.

Both sides reiterated their resolve to further enhance the bilateral working collaboration in the future.