Islamabad - Parwaan Pakistan and Ilm Ideas 2 signed a contract here on Friday to scale up Parwaan Pre-school – A School Readiness Programme from five to fifteen more districts in Punjab, KPK, Balochistan and Islamabad. Under the contract 2000 more Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres will be established for the benefit of more than 35,000 marginalised children of age group 3-5 years. Parwaan Preschool Programme adopts an innovative two-pronged approach in catering to early year’s education and development needs of poor and marginalized children of age 3-5 years.
The programme builds capacities of unemployed educated youth through 8-week extensive training in entrepreneurial and early years development skills to open up ECD centres in their respective communities.
The youth in the first phase of the programme had come forward as a positive force by providing quality early childhood opportunities to more than 1500 children age 3-5 years in marginalized areas in five districts - Kohat, Charsadda Bahawalpur, Khushab and ICT.
Third Party Valuation has ranked 90 per cent of the centres in the “good” category as measured against international ECD standards.
These centres are increasing the livelihood of the entrepreneurs as well as their families. The success of the programme has resulted in its expansion. The signing ceremony among others was attended by the Joint Education Advisor Ministry for Federal Education & Professional
Training Prof Mohammad Rafique Tahir, Team Lead Ilm Ideas- 2 Helen
Kamal, Mehnaz Aziz President Parwaan and other senior government officials, representatives from civil society organizations etc.
Professor Mohammad Rafique Tahir Joint Education Advisor speaking on the occasion said that he presented Parwaan program in Early Childhood Conference in Cambodia in March this year in which more than 600 participants took part. He said known figures in early childhood education and development appreciated the idea. He said, we want these centres to be opened in remote areas of Pakistan as the programme also provides employment opportunities to unemployed youth.
He said if the government tries to open katchi classes it has many pre-requisites. So this programme is the best for replication. Parwaan has developed material under the programme, which can be utilised in this context. Earlier Mehnaz Aziz President Parwaan in her welcome note briefed the guests about the Programme expansion and said that the program has been tried and tested in first phase and is now fine tuned for implementation in the second phase. Helen Kamal Team lead Ilm -2 highlighted the work of DFID/UKAID for the promotion of education in Pakistan.