Bridging the learning gap in Punjab
Global Partnership for Education and UNICEF provide out-of-school children in Punjab, a second chance to learn.
Bahawalpur District, Punjab: On a sunny morning, a group of young girls and boys walk through a muddy pathway surrounding mudbrick houses in Chak 13 - a village in Southern Punjab’s Bahawalpur district.
Carrying UNICEF school bags, they excitedly approach a mud-house marked with a board that reads “Non-Formal Education Centre”.
Greeted by their teacher Sunaina (24), children start sitting on plastic mats spread across the courtyard.
This Non-Formal Education (NFE) Centre has been established by the Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education Department (L&NFBED), under the TALEEM (Education) programme, funded by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and implemented by UNICEF.
Such NFEs are community-based schools established in locations where formal schools are not available for out of school children – those who had never been enrolled or had dropped out at some stage.
This NFE centre is situated in Sunaina’s own house. She had converted one of the rooms into a classroom. However, as spring approaches and the weather is favourable, children often sit outside and study under the open sky.
As the children settle down, Sunaina asks for a volunteer to come forward and read a paragraph from the Urdu textbook. Qurban Ali (12) is the first to raise his hand.
Qurban eagerly reads through his textbook and gets a loud clap from his classmates upon successful completion of the task.
Though it appears to be a modest setting, this is a dream come true for village children who are otherwise deprived of regular education, either due to the non-availability of a regular school in their area or the fact that their parents cannot afford to send them to one.
In the Chak 13 NFE, a total of 50 children, mostly girls, between the ages of 10 to 16, are currently enrolled. Before their enrollment here, these children had never experienced what is it like to be in a school and learn.
For Sunaina, educating children in her village is a passion. Educated in the nearby city of Bahawalpur, she became the first girl in the village to attain a university degree. Dismayed at the lack of education in her village, she leapt on to the opportunity of establishing the NFE centre in her own house.
Chak 13-A village is home to nearly 1500 people but there was not a single school in the village. Most of the men work as labourers on the agricultural fields, while a considerable number of women also work as house-help in the nearby city. As poverty is rampant, children are frequently compelled to work to support their families financially.
Qurban, the eldest among his siblings and the only son, has been working at a relative’s barbershop in the village since the age of 10. His father Abid Hussain works as a labourer on the nearby fields while his mother stitches clothes at home and sells them in the city.
"I was always fascinated by schools. Whenever I accompanied my father on errands in the city, we’d pass by them. The students seemed so different in the way they spoke, the uniforms they wore and the school bags they carried. I often wondered if I could ever be like them,” shares Qurban.
The young boy would often express his desire to study to his father, but he would be told that going to the school in the city would incur additional expenses which they cannot afford. Little did Qurban know that soon his life was going to change and his dream would come true.
When the NFE centre was established in Chak 13, word spread fast in the small community. Qurban vividly recalls the day when he came back from work to find Sunaina and a social mobilizer at his place talking to his parents.
His father had flatly refused to send Qurban to school citing their financial constraints. But what he heard next surprised him – the school was free. Not only was there no school fee, but the stationery and books would also be provided free of cost.
“My father kissed my forehead and told me that now I would need to wake up early every morning because I would be going to school,” shares Qurban with a smile.
Since the past year, Qurban has been attending the NFE centre in the mornings and goes to work at the barbershop in the afternoons.
“The best part about school is learning something new every day. Now I can read English and Urdu. I can also do mathematical calculations and I’m much more aware of my surroundings,” says Qurban excitedly.
With his son’s dream finally coming true, Abid also admits to how wrong his perspective about education was.
“Earlier, I was resisting my son’s education due to financial concerns. I failed to realize that without education, his future would be no different than mine. Education is the key to prosperity for our future generations. I have also decided to send my daughters to school later this year,” says Abid.
At the NFE centre, the children are taught an accelerated curriculum which helps them catch up with the years of schooling they lost and reintegrate into the mainstream education system. The centres are also established within the community to ensure maximum enrollment, especially for girls, who are seldom allowed to venture out of their village. Currently, 1000 NFE centres with more than 40,000 students have been established in Punjab under the TALEEM programme funded by GPE.
The GPE is a multistakeholder partnership and the largest global fund solely dedicated to strengthening education systems in developing countries.
“The NFE model thrives on community support,” explains Kamran Iftikhar Lone, UNICEF Pakistan’s Education Manager in Punjab. “We encourage ownership of this initiative by the community as it’s the only way it can be sustained in the long run and continue to provide children with the opportunity to learn, grow and thrive.”
