More enrolment and retention for girls in schools stressed

LAHORE, Oct 5: Punjab School Education Department Additional Secretary (budget and planning) Mahmood Hasan has called for bringing in accountability in the system to ensure that more and more children be enrolled in schools and retained.

Mr Hasan was speaking at a Lahore district progress review and follow-up consultation meeting to discuss activities under the United Nations Girls? Education Initiative (UNGEI) aimed at improving enrolment and retention especially for girls in schools in selected districts of Punjab ? at school education department?s committee room on Oct 4.

Mr Hasan stressed the need for promoting Early Childhood Education to instil love for education in children, which would stay with them for the rest of their lives. He said the learning at 3-5 years of age was much faster than in the following years. He said the media should also create awareness about taboos as well as poverty issues.

In order to meet results in a tangible manner, the additional secretary stressed that there was a need to compulsorily register each and every child on birth.

Executive District Officer (Education), Lahore, Muhammad Pervaiz Akhtar said some 118,000 children had been enrolled in schools raising total strength of students in Lahore public sector schools to 673,000.

The EDO stressed a change in teachers? performance assessment criteria considering a fact that how many children were enrolled in a teacher?s class and how many carried up to a terminal examination level ? Class-V, Class-VIII and Class-IX-X.

With reference to educating out-of-school and over-age children, Mr Akhtar stressed that more and more Non-Formal Basic Education centres should be opened in all districts. He said some 450 NFBE centres were operating in Lahore district and more centres could be opened on the identification of need in any street or area in Lahore district. Similarly, he said, EDOs in all districts were also cognisant of the fact and opening NFBE centres.

In order to cater to the educational needs of more and more children, the EDO said the education department had identified 42 sites for the construction of new schools in Lahore. He said many schools were operating second-shift classes.

He said the monitoring system in Lahore was quite stringent and ?we are counting heads while surveying the number of children in schools?.Punjab School Education Department Deputy Secretary (budget and planning) Qaiser Rasheed said there were around 4.4 million (5-9 years age group) out-of-school children in Punjab. He said the Punjab literacy and non-formal basic education department needed to open some 31,000 non-formal schools to cater to just two million out of 4.4 million children.

He said the literacy department could help them attain primary education through a 40-month crash literacy cycle. Mr Rasheed also posed a question that there was no strategy available to cater to the needs of 10-16 years of age children, who were either dropped out of schools or had never been to schools. He acknowledged that only vocational and technical education could help incline such children towards education.

DEO Zulfiqar said there were around 90,000 out-of-school children in Lahore district.

Earlier, UNGEI-Punjab Project Coordinator Sobia Fazilat and Jahandad Society for Community Development Coordinator Usman Zafar gave presentations on their respective programmes.

Published by Daily Dawn on Oct 5, 2012

Source: http://pakistan.childrightsdesk.com/?p=23206

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