Saturday, 19 July 2014

Emphasis on Education in KPK

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or KPK is the poorest among the other provinces of Pakistan today in terms of economics. The potentials of its citizens are huge when they live in other parts of Pakistan for their honour, pride, bravery & commitment as a workforce & professionals but unfortunately at home these potentials seem to be low as few facilities and avenues are available to its residents. Dispossessed; this land of valiant has faced serious economic, developmental, terrorist, security situation within and governance problems in the past, with Afghan Refugees that it housed & nurtured for decades. Devastation of floods ruined vast agricultural lands, infrastructure, livelihood & properties. With less emphasis given over the years to this area it lagged behind in many fields. Lives of the citizens had been greatly interrupted or disrupted. Eventually it became isolated!

Way before the 9/11; KPK showed great progress, but unfortunately the conflict in Afghanistan left its marks deep not only on the lives of people in KP but it literally made that area a mini war zone,  limited everything for the residents of this area from the basics of education & health facilities too. According to media reports, terrorism, floods & Earthquakes contributed to destruction of over 3,400 schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.  A total of 758 schools were destroyed by militants in different parts of the province including 640 schools in Malakand division. 164 schools of these were completely razed to the ground while 476 were partially damaged. 36 schools in Peshawar, Hangu, Bannu, Lakki Marwat & other areas of province were completely destroyed by militants, while 82 were partially damaged. As many as 1694 schools were destroyed by floods. Among them 160 schools were completely destroyed while remaining were partially damaged.

KPK’s new Government was formed after the May 11, 2013 elections in a coalition between Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf & Jamat-e-Islami. PTI with its majority seats & a firm grip on the pulse of the people started taking steps that were not only pragmatic but also brought instant relief to this troubled area. These steps carry long term results in the larger interest, which will bring prosperity back.

In its first year, PTI has done commendable work. Conditions in KP are now much stable as compared to when it took charge; one such example is human rights. Emphasis was made to develop and strengthen health & education in the province. As media reported, PTI’s government declared “Jihad against Illiteracy”, initiating Biometric attendance system, Uniform learning system, Tameer-e-School Emergency, Enrollment drive, Education City & Education Management Information System.

Education is the backbone of any nation & without it none can progress or prosper. For this, civil society, teacher’s union, parents, community elders were taken into confidence, they were made aware of the importance of education for their child at primary level. In all around 5 million children have been enrolled in this drive. Due to poverty & security threats children were not being enrolled in schools throughout KPK previously. Parents had reservations in sending their children for education because girls’ schools in particular had been razed to the ground through attacks by terrorists. KPK’s Government has made an immense movement in this respect by restoring the trust of these families to come forward.

These new steps are revolutionary for this province which has witnessed destruction for a long time. The Biometric Attendance Monitoring system installed for teachers use only in Government schools. This followed by a file tracking system wherein all records of the education department and schools will be computerized. This will ensure availability of every record at all times.
 It has proved to be successful. In time, the teacher attendance has increased significantly which will prove to bring great outcome in the academic learning of children and their overall yearly test results.

“Tameer-e-School” (Construct a School) initiative was another milestone step by KP Government. With little funds to finance humongous task of reconstruction of destroyed schools, for missing facilities such as toilets, additional classrooms, computer labs, furniture, and boundary walls. Basically improve the infrastructure of the school by adding missing facilities. Cover the cost of sustained, safe drinking water in the school. At a later stage in the program, donors are given the option of contributing towards purchase of teaching & learning aids, and playground and sports equipment. This initiative involved affluent individuals and organizations to donate funds for improvement of deserving schools of the province. Initially 1200 schools were targeted.

Just recently a stipend of Rs 200/- per month has been announced for every female student at primary school level as a motivation for the child to come & attend school. This will also work as an enrollment enhancer for girls and give them benefits relatively more than boys.  This will increase the access for female students in basic education.

Such an initiative can work wonders as it did so in Bangladesh.
The female secondary school stipend program began there as an experiment in 1982 by a local NGO in a single upazila (sub district) with USAID financial assistance under the supervision of the Asia Foundation. A second upazila was included in 1984 and several more subsequently, totaling seven by 1992, when NORAD took over support for the program. The stipend program continued in the name of FESP from July 1992 to December 1996 as a sub-project under the umbrella of the General Education Project of NORAD. The experience of this pilot project was described as highly successful since the actual number of stipends provided far exceeded the projected number at the time of inception.  The number of awardee schools increased by 12 percent in four years of project life. Bangladesh took independence from Pakistan in 1971, their literacy rate of today is: Youth (15-24 years) Male 77.1%, Youth (15-24 years) Female 80.4%, Primary school level male 77.2%, Primary school level female 81.2% (Courtesy; Unicef)
All of these education initiatives in KPK were long overdue. They have taken the right direction, it will contribute to the larger reform efforts of the government in this sector, with the objectives of improving the quality of education, sustaining improved gender equity achieved at the primary level/secondary school level, addressing regional and rural/urban inequities in access, improving management capacity of Ministry of Education at the provincial level and improving monitoring and accountability mechanisms at the community level. The stipend program is seen as one mechanism for improving gender equity and increasing access of girls to education. These girls in future can specially save millions of lives. As Napoleon Bonaparte rightly said, “Give me an educated mother, I shall promise you the birth of a civilized, educated nation"


2 comments:

  1. Nice to hear that kp is also making progress in the field of education

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