Islamabad: (Parliament Times) Star school is a project of PAGE which will be supporting Out of School Girls in the locality through education; girls would be getting non-formal education as the part of primary school accelerated program introduced by the Japan International Cooperation Agency – JICA. Pakistan Alliance for Girls Education (PAGE) is working with American Refugee Committee-Pak to enroll 1 million out of School children in Pakistan under the ‘Educate a Child’ program, this program has been launched worldwide by the ‘Education Above All’- Foundation Qatar.
In Pakistan, a high percentage of parents cannot send their children to school at all. However, once these children get to school, the quality of education being provided to the vast majority is far below acceptable standards. In order to keep up with the dramatically changing global economy and technological advancement, PAGE has taken the initiative to empower girls through education all across Pakistan. Due to socio-economic and cultural barriers girls in Pakistan have become the most marginalised and vulnerable part of the society. According to Alif Ailan 2017 report there are around 25.02 million out-of-school children (OOSC) in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary age groups. Approximately half of these OOSC falls in primary age group and 70% (8.6 million) of those children were never enrolled in any school. With 13 million girls out of school, Pakistan has the second-largest number of out-of-school female students in the world, a report by Alif Ailaan has revealed in 2016.
MNA Ms. Romina Alam on this occasion said that, Due to government efforts all across Pakistan there has been significant decrease in OOSC”, while highlighting the achievements of present government in education sector she further added, “We have set education standards first time in the history of country and we would be able to achieve the SDG goal 4 of United Nations in 2030, due to visionary reforms made by the current government”.
PAGE trustee, Mr. Zafar Qadir said that In order to remove social and cultural barriers and increase access for adolescent and young girls, PAGE has endeavoured to employ female teachers in the most marginalized and hardest to access communities. The ‘I AM A STAR’ model is easy to replicate and scale across the country, building on the incredible assets that already exist within the communities. Providing equal opportunities to education to all community members, including those with special needs, ‘I AM A STAR’ ensures strong community participation and ownership, making all possible efforts to bring in more funds and resources to enlighten the lives of the little hidden stars in poor communities.
On this occasion Ms. Fajer Pasha Executive Director PAGE, Ms. Nazia Hameed and Ms. Syeda Sadaf PAGE Ambassadors were also present. This school in Muslim colony will have generous support of Mrs. Nadia Bukhari, Mr. Kashif Minhas, Mrs. Rehana Chaudhry and Mr. Imran Malik.
