The NGO World Foundation

TNW, JICA AQAL and ARC signed LOU

Islamabad: TNW, JICA AQAL, and ARC entered into a partnership to facilitate the Action Research being carried out by AKUIED to gauge the efficacy and appropriateness of the NFE Curriculum and Learning Materials.

The literacy rate in Sindh is recorded at 60%, just behind the Punjab province, which enjoys the highest literacy rate in Pakistan with a literate population of 62%. There are approximately 10 million children of school-going age above 5 years in Sindh. However, only 3.4 million children out of this are enrolled in educational institutions while an alarming 6.6 million are out of school. The percentage enrolled (34%) versus those not enrolled (66%) reveal that a large number of students have yet to be brought into the schools. To narrow this gap, there are non-formal schools where about 6.7% of children are currently enrolled. This demonstrates that an alternative learning path exists in Sindh which needs to be further explored.

TNW, being an active stakeholder for promotion of Non Formal Education in Sindh is contributing to JICA and the Directorate of Literacy and Non-Formal Education (L&NFE)’s track-record in Sindh by applying their work in development of the Curriculum and the Learning Material, standards, assessment tools and teacher training modules in Sindh, in the Centres established by TNW. The approach complements the efforts of School Education Department, Government of Sindh to achieve objectives of Non-Formal Education (NFE) as envisioned in the Sindh Education Sector Plan (2014-2018). Under this plan, there is an NFE taskforce consisting of five committees: policy and advocacy, curriculum and material development, teacher management, strengthening of NFE directorate, and M&E and community mobilization. Working in partnership, ARC, TNW, and JICA-AQAL will contribute to the Directorate of L&NFE Sindh in qualitatively achieving the targets set for NFE sector in the SESP 2014-18, and beyond.

TNW, owing to its experience with the most marginalized communities, in terms of provision of quality education has track record of successful community mobilization, and capacity development of the local people, especially females, through continuous mentoring, and training, in becoming well-performing teachers, and enrolling & retaining the out of school children in the Centers established by TNW.

Mr. Zafar Iqbal (Executive Director of TNW Foundation) signed the LOU along with Ms. Chiho Ohashi (Chiho Ohashi JICA-AQAL and Mr. Zulfiqar Shah from ARC.)

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