know that my child is in a better space than I was in education, but how do I know that she is learning well?” said Rani’s mother. “I am a settler from Swat in Karachi. I spend a third of my earnings on my children’s schooling, but I worry when I see Ahmed, my 10-year-old son struggling with simple reading in spite of schooling and expensive coaching costs in the afternoon. I know education transforms lives and generations; having received only primary education I have struggled in life,” another chilling voice of a mother echoes vividly in Muzaffarabad on the fourth day of the apocalyptic 2005 earthquake. “What can you do to resume education for my children urgently? I do not want them to lose a year of their academics due to this monster earthquake.” This demand reverberated when parents became the frontline learning support partners (70 percent), even when illiterate, shifting the widespread perception of low parental engagement in Pakistan.

Millions of parents remain concerned about their children’s learning and well-being in the face of worst adversity but have few platforms to voice their concerns at local and national levels. The educated and economically better off parents are actively engaged in their children’s learning pathways, whilst the majority with low education, economic and societal standing make do with whatever they can to raise their children for a better future through education, care and resilience. In 2012, the UN General Assembly designated June 1 as the Global Day of Parents, acknowledging “parents for their critical role and selfless commitment to children and lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship.” Parents are the first anchor for children’s development in every society and culture across all socio-economic groups, without discrimination. Is there evidence on how they can be supported to play a constructive role in their children’s learning?

Parents at the frontline - frustrated narratives:

For Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi working across Pakistan, especially with vulnerable groups and in more than 10 emergencies since 2000, the first port of call has always been parents and communities to understand their concerns and aspirations. It is the parents who are the first respondents for collecting evidence and voice for the flagship programme, the Annual Status of Education Report, a citizen survey since 2008 on foundational learning from 100,000+ households in 154 districts of the country. It is the parents who are most eager to hear the results of the village/ district report cards when citizens’ kutcheries/ baithaks are called to devise calls to action, including behaviour change for children’s schooling and learning. They know about the challenges first hand in schools; be it teacher presence, poor capacity, change in attitudes, resource and infrastructure shortages. They track electoral promises by politicians but do not always know where to lobby for sharing their frustration with unmet promises for equity, quality and post primary opportunities, especially for girls.

Raising parents is this year’s theme on the Global Day of Parents. Parents and caregivers/ extended family support require time, resources and facilitation in order to raise children in a nurturing positive environment. Pakistan with a 243 million population and unmet services, including reduction in population growth rate, health, birth registration, nutrition, education, skills and livelihoods, is also endowed with positive trends. These include: a) better data (National Census 2023) and regular administrative surveys; b) large social protection programmes under BISP and other government programmes adopting the life cycle approach from supporting the first 1,000 days of the child (Nashonuma/ Mamta) to BISP Wazaif-i-Taleem (for 4-22 year olds) for conditional cash transfers for education to households (higher amounts to girls), Kifalat unconditional cash transfers and other livelihood grants to fragile households for economic stabilisation and poverty reduction; c) notified school management committees or equivalent in every government/ public sector school across Pakistan to engage parents in school planning and governance; and d) governments’ open door policy on partnerships with civil society to help improve responses/ services to households, citizens and parents. The critical challenge is to connect the dots for a nationwide coherent parental awareness on programme/ services options, support and engagement in Pakistan.

Parents rise when facilitated - the positive narrative: There is robust evidence in Pakistan across every sector that resistance drops when people are enabled through dialogue, evidence, support and participation for outcomes. They know intersectionality concretely. Sanjha Vehra (our courtyard) was a multisectoral early years programme, designed by ITA post 2012-2013 floods, in the rural areas of the Punjab and Sindh to connect mothers, lady health workers and specialists with health, nutrition, learning readiness through play, TVET and livelihoods in community settings. Mothers not only coined the programme’s name – Sanjha Vehra – as a safe sanctuary for them to leave their children in a protected community space while they rebuilt their destroyed houses, they also owned every dimension of the holistic intervention. Sanjha Vehras resurfaced during Covid-19, supported by parents and communities in neighbourhoods with technical assistance by ITA. Rigorous studies in Pakistan reveal strong trends of positive parental engagement, especially during Covid-19 for 3- to 5-year-olds (Early Learning Partnerships for systems 2019-2023). These trends must be leveraged for induction of parents from early grades in SMCs.

Parents are truly invested in their children’s learning and need support in positive child rearing and play-based parenting practices. When the ConnectEd programme was initiated for phone-based and SMS tutoring for foundational numeracy by organisations during Covid-19 and beyond in Pakistan (ITA/ Taleemabad) engaging children, parents and teachers, parents responded positively to participate in reinforcing timely learning routines and evidence tracking on what worked and why? Siyani Sahelian (wise friends) an accelerated programme for drop-out adolescent girls (50,000+) was fully backed by parents who supported their daughters to resume, transition and complete academic programme with life skills, TVET and livelihoods as pathways to individual and family transformation through learning and earning. The Aawaz II programme has successfully mobilised parents and youth champions in excluded communities of Pakistan to address missed birth registration for timely school enrolment. Forty-four child friendly libraries to support literacy/ reading routines in schools, set up during Covid-19 and beyond in government primary schools of Bahawalpur and Lahore (now expanding to 15 districts) with parental community resource groups as a pillar for sustainability, have met with a resounding response. Parents contributed books, furniture and library corners; they also read and heard stories from books their children borrowed from the school library. The enabling environment of government support, trust and care is critical to fostering a positive culture of partnerships and learning teams, closing the chronic gap across schools, and homes, upholding parents as sustainable societal glue. It was indeed reassuring to hear the Punjab’s school education minister’s recent directive, “we must ensure that school libraries are accessible to communities/ parents beyond the school hours to optimise learning.” This sentiment of support echoes across Pakistan.

Let us bring parents from the peripheries to the centre, enabling them as the most trustworthy sustainable partners for All Children Learning.

The writer is the CEO of Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi. She is a founder of the Pakistan Learning Festival and a global champion of the Learning Generation Initiative. She can be reached at baela.jamil@itacec.org

Note: Programmes by the ITA have been supported by all governments (provincial and federal). Its other partners include Dubai Cares, FCDO, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, Malala Fund, the British Council, Youth Impact, Open Societies Foundation, Room to Read and many industry leaders