PESHAWAR (Pajhwok): Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has embarked on the enrollment of Afghan refugee children in schools.
An official of the KP Elementary and Secondary Education Department said out-of-school Afghan refugee children were being enrolled and a plan for achieving the objective had been finalised.
Under the Schools Readiness Program (SRP), initially Afghan refugee students are being enrolled in 35 public schools across the province.
The official told APP under the Post-Primary Readiness Program, refugee children were being admitted to 10 schools in Peshawar, Nowshera and Swabi.
Under Education Sector Plan (ESP) the government has embarked upon special initiatives and reforms seeking development, digitisation and improving service delivery.
As part of ESP,the KP government invested Rs166.47 billion in 2019-20, yielding concrete results in terms of reducing the number of out-of-school children in five to 16 years age bracket.
“The number of out-of-school children was reduced from 23 per cent in 2016-17 to 20 per cent in 2018,” the official claimed.
Likewise, the enrollment in public schools has risen by 16 per cent since 2013, with substantial enhancement of 2.44 per cent in 2019-20.
Additionally, teachers’ attendance increased from 91 to 92 per cent after introduction of Online Action Management System (OAMS).
Rs337 million were released for recruitment of 1,240 teachers last year while the recruitment process of 3,000 school leaders has also started.
Besides the recruitment of about 72,576 teachers to different cadres, every school will be provided tablet PCs for the education of children.
Government schools are being equipped with furniture worth Rs6 billion to facilitate 2.6 million children across the province.
Another official said the establishment of digital laboratories in over 50 schools under the early age programme, 5,000 early childhood education (ECE) rooms were constructed while 100 ECE rooms are being built in merged tribal districts.
AnMoU has been signed with Hundreds of Original Projects for Employment (HOPE’87) to set up smart schools.
In merged tribal districts, 308 schools were constructed and upgraded while 100 ECE rooms and 240 science laboratories are being constructed besides 733 ECE rooms approved over the last three years.
In merged tribal districts, 31 new schools were set up and upgraded last year while 75 new ones would be established and 1,100 solarised in 2021-22.
mud
Hits: 18