ISLAMABAD-Federal Minister for education on Tuesday claimed that around 7,000 out-of-school children had been admitted in 3 months in the educational institutions of the federal city.
The Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training (FE&PT) Shafqat Mehmood said this while inaugurating an admission center for the OOSCs at Islamabad Model School for Girls, G-7/2.
The minister said on this occasion that government was committed in bringing all OOSCs back to school and for the purpose; the educational institutions had been directed to admit these children into schools.
He also said that OOSCs had also health issues and government was taking measures to nourish these children after their enrolment in the schools. He added that a ‘food programme’ will be also launched in schools for children. The minister added that the biggest challenge for teachers would be to retain these children enrolled in schools.
The minister said that problems of schools will be also uploaded on the website. The campaign of OOSCs enrollment in schools was launched in November last year by the minister and Federal Directorate of Education (FDE).
The implementation of the programme was launched together with NGOs including JICA, ARC, PAGE and others.
An official said that FDE was able to identify about 11,000 out-of-school children through door-to-door survey with special instructions of the minister.
The official added that out of 11,000 kids, 4,000 children aging 5-7 years had been successfully enrolled into schools with free uniform, books and stationary in first phase, while in second phase children with age of 8-16yrs and who have never been to the schools will be enrolled.
The official said that an exclusive accelerated learning programme had been designed to teach them for 3yrs, which will be equivalent to 5th grade upon its completion.
It is initially taking place in the second half of the day with 44centres in government schools to act as centers.
Federal education while launching the enrolment program of OOSC in November has claimed that 30000 children were out of school in the federal city.
Ministry of FE&PT had launched the National Education Policy Framework on the completion of hundred days of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in government.
The NEPF was a step for enrollment of the OSC Islamabad. Earlier, the ministry had vowed to take the enrollment of children in school up to 100 percent.
In the presentation, Joint Education Advisor Dr Rafique Tahir had said that the city had around 27,300 out-of-school children and ministry formed a forum to bring the OOSCs to the institutions providing formal and informal education.
The departments include Basic Education Community Schools (BECS), NCHD and private organization will be also the part of the forum to facilitate in achieving this goal.
Dr Rafique Tahir had said that the target of bringing all estimated OSC will be achieved in five steps. In the first step, the ministry and its department will identify the number of OSC in different sectors of the city. After the identification of the child, a nearby school will be selected for him in the relevant sector.
He had state that the community mobilization will be started to get the proper number of OSC in different sectors and convince the parents to send their children to schools.