NCHD working on top priority to enroll OOSC in Pakistan: Razina

ISLAMABAD, August 29 (APP):Chairperson for National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), former Senator Razina Alam Khan said, “NCHD is working on priority basis to enroll out of school children (OOSC)”.
She maintained that the commission was also working on skill development to empower the neglected factions of the society, especially women.
The chairperson NCHD expressed these views while briefing Federal Minister for Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Shafqat Mahmood here.
While talking about NCHD, she said the Commission had been contributing significantly towards 22.8 million OOSC and it annually conducts a massive enrollment campaign in 124 districts of Pakistan, visiting remote areas at door steps to access all OOSC, she added.
There are 5,949 feeder schools across the country including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) where 335,164 children of age 5 to 16 are acquiring education in the remote areas, she said.
NCHD has also pioneered 100 Madrassa schools in former FATA, ICT, AJK and GB, she further added. She believed that, “primary education is the most important step in a child’s educational career. It is a crucial stage in child’s formative development and will shape the child into a learner, thinker and social being”.
The organization has constituted an Advisory Council on literacy and Islamabad Forum on non-formal education, which brings all stakeholders on a single platform to work for this noble cause, she informed.
Talking about adult literacy program she said that NCHD being a lead agency in Adult Literacy had made 3.96 million people literate since inception and won International Reading Award 2006 from UNESCO on Literacy.
In NCHD’s previous literacy phase, the commission introduced Functional Literacy Program with a purpose to make them literate along with useful citizens by delivering literacy and vocational and technical skills, she informed.
Through this program 150,000 adults especially women have been benefited and local skills in the rural areas was imparted to them in short span of time, she added.
A detailed analysis of Out-of-School Children is important for complementing the on-going work in all provinces and areas to scale up evidence based education activities to ensure that all children have access to quality education, she claimed. “Our focus is to make nation 90 per cent literate and achieve 100% enrolment by 2025”, she added.
The National Training Institute (NTI) of NCHD is established to ensure quality education by conducting research studies, capacitating staff in Literacy and Non-Formal Education (NFE) and developing need based teaching learning resource packages for NFE and Literacy programs, she briefed.
NTI under Federal Ministry of Education and Professional Training has prepared National Plan of Action (2018-2025) that will help policy-makers and education experts to better address challenges and bottlenecks in the education system, she viewed.