e-Newsletter, April 2021

Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) or the "Centre of Education and Consciousness" Public Trust, established in 2000, is a civil society organization focused on addressing the profound education crisis of Pakistan through action and policy research, service-delivery and advocacy. ITA has been a strong education champion across Pakistan with field programs covering complex aspects of: Access, Learning, Quality, Evaluating Low Cost Private Schools, Inclusion, Child Protection, Gender Justice and Education, Tolerance, Citizenship, Health and Hygiene Interventions, and Technical and Vocational Training Programs with government, communities and public and private school systems.

Global Action Week for Education

ITA celebrated the Global Action Week for Education from April 26-30, 2021, highlighting the successes of program interventions and innovations that ensured that Learning Never Stops during Covid-19. These included actions on girls\' education; parents, teachers’ and community engagement; play-based and Ed-tech based learning; Sanjha Vehra learning courtyards; digital safety; model libraries; Digi Kutub Khanay and many more. #WeStandforEducation

ITA wins big at Karachi Awards

ITA won two awards in the Education and Heritage & Culture Categories at the Karachi Awards held by K-Electric. Mariam Shah from ITA received the Education Award from CMCO KE Sadia Dada and Sehrish Farooq received the Heritage & Culture Award from CEO KE Moonis Alvi. ITA is the only organization to have won two awards in the ceremony competing with several others.

Learning Never Stops

Playful Parenting – Engaging Mothers for Meaningful Play

ITA is reaching out to parents; especially mothers from the local villages to educate them on how to engage their little ones in meaningful play through simple activities at home. These activities help children develop their foundation learning with simple and easily available objects at home.

Sanjha Vehra – Thematic and Inquiry Based Approach

Our students in Sanjha Vehra are learning about different concepts through thematic and inquiry based learning where they are encouraged to observe the things around them, question them and link it to their learning from their books. These children are developing projects to depict their learning and share it with children of other grades.

ASER 2021 – Measuring the Impact of Covid-19

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is the largest citizen led; household based initiative that aims to provide reliable estimates on the schooling status of children aged 3-16 years residing in all rural and few urban districts of Pakistan. ASER 2021 aims to measure the learning losses due to Covid-19 and schools shut down in 2020. The ASER survey has successfully been held in 16 rural districts of Pakistan, targeting a sample of 9,600 households. After holding the provincial and district trainings, the citizen-led, household-based survey was conducted in all the selected districts. ASER team closely monitored the activities. After data entry and cleaning, a brief of findings from 12 districts has also been submitted to the Finance division, to be included in the Economic Survey of Pakistan (Education chapter).

Safe School Reopening Pilot (SRP)

With the goal to create a scalable, fully-costed pilot for safe and healthy school reopening aligned to the MoFE&PT priorities, community engagement and evidence-based practices, the community mobilization teams are conducting meetings with Parent Vigilance Committee and community members to strengthen the awareness and practices on SOPs against COVID-19, as a component of Mitigation Action Plan, while the schools are closed. Project documentary is in the making, and interviews of selected principals, teachers and students are underway, with the consent of FDE; AEOs and Principals. The IEC material is being distributed and displayed in respective schools. The challenge remains for the utilization of the preventive & protective equipment and services by the target group, on account of school closure. The schools’ closure on account of third wave of COVID-19 affected the process of midline assessment planned during April 2021. More information regarding activities and updates of SRP are available at our website.

Siyani Sahelian

Consultation from a Gender Perspective on Girl Child Education in Pakistan

ITA participated in a consultative webinar designed to understand the challenges and opportunities related to girls\' education in Pakistan organized by UN Women and Unilever on April 29, 2021. Focusing on girl child education, the webinar invited leading specialists and representatives from the government, academia, civil society, UN agencies and MNCs. ITA CEO Baela Raza Jamil, building on its flagship programs on girls’ education Siyani Sahelian and Aasman Se Batein, discussed the best practices of the program and the bold actions that could be taken for second chance girls’ education in Pakistan. The consultation deep dived into barriers to girls’ education and interventions that can reduce the gender gap.

Siyani Sahelian Techies bag their first Freelancing Project

After a 4-month training in basic digital literacy and WordPress, Siyani Sahelian Fatima, Anza Ayesha and Saba Bashir are currently working on their first freelance project by Pink Revolution, a blog-based website to showcase work done for Women Empowerment in different fields. If you have a startup or organization and want to have a digital presence, outsource your website to our talented young women. Our digital training segments are currently active in Bahawalpur and Multan in partnership with Circle Women.

Aasman Se Batein

No girl should be left behind – Under Aasman Se Batein girls’ education program supported by Malala Fund and being implemented by ITA in collaboration with the School Education Department, Punjab, we are carrying out Enrollment Drive 2021 to bring girls to school.

Children’s Literature Festival

Digi Kutub Khana launches in Chitral

Digi Kutub Khana (DKK) is a learning living library (3L) – an initiative of the CLF and ITA. DKK or 3L aims to mitigate learning losses and accelerate lifelong learning in Pakistan, through culturally relevant and community-based learning. DKK was launched in Chitral as a ray of hope to the children of Kalash valley by providing quality books, fun games, art supplies and educational activity packs to help realize the children\'s dreams of becoming artists, writers or just simply becoming avid readers.

CLF celebrates World Book Day

To celebrate World Book Day, CLF Ambassador Atif Badar held a dramatic storytelling session with the children of Mubarak Village, Sindh with DKK trunk library. Children enjoyed the storytelling with facial and voice expressions as CLF promotes learning with fun and creativity.

CLF celebrates Global Action Week for Education

CLF celebrated the Global Action Week for Education in collaboration with Pakistan Literacy Project by hosting read alouds, puppet show and origami workshops. Click to watch.

Pakistan Literacy Project

Another feather in the cap for Pakistan and ITA - 28 Room to Read Children\'s Storybooks from 10 countries have been adapted in Urdu under Pakistan Literacy Project in collaboration with School Education Department, Government of the Punjab. We are ready to welcome children back to school with 20 libraries in Lahore and Bahawalpur with 628 selected titles from publishers, targeting primary age children, teachers and parents. These beautifully illustrated Room to Read books are a great boon to the Joys of Reading.

Facebook - We Think Digital

ITA in collaboration with Facebook is successfully conducting engagement activities across 12 districts of Pakistan. We Think Digital by Facebook aims to bring awareness among teachers, students, youth volunteers, and communities about how to use digital spaces safely and securely. The program effectively introduces the new concept of digital citizenship, digital identity and also addresses the common threats and its solution, we as a netizens might face while using digital space. Under this program, our provincial and district trainers, well equipped with digital skills, are engaging users in remote areas with minimal or no internet access. An extensive 9-day in-person training of 60 teachers was completed in Rahim Yar Khan.

Meanwhile, a virtual inception workshop of 10 schools was also held in Mianwali where school owners were provided with a comprehensive introduction, context, and benefits of the We Think Digital program.

Telenor Safe Internet and School Outreach Program

Telenor Safe Internet and School Outreach Program is an exciting project with the aim of teaching students and teachers about how to be a responsible digital citizen and how to use the internet in a safe way. We teach students aged 3-22 years in an interactive learning session through the incorporation of DigiWorld game developed by Telenor. Through this, students learn about pertinent topics like cyber bullying, hackers and other dangers of the digital world. Currently, the program has the aim of training 200,000 students and 7000 teachers in 2021 and has already trained 41,395 students and 651 teachers till date.

Life Skills for Kids (LSK)

LSK students are learning science experiments using home-based materials with Scientists of Tomorrow course by Science Fuse. They are setting science labs at huts and schools to practice more fun experiments. One of LSK teachers got ‘Best Science Teacher’ award from Science fuse team.

World Book Day was celebrated in LSK Learning places where students prepared books of stories, art work, animals, flowers, Corona SOPs etc. They also presented book contents in different sessions. Meanwhile, a prize distribution ceremony was held at LSK after the result was announced, attended by teachers and parents.

Earth Day 2021

Climate Change is a bigger reality than COVID-19. On April 22, ITA celebrated Earth Day with the pledge to change our vision, learning and lifestyles to protect our precious Earth.

World Book Day 2021

On April 23, ITA celebrated World Book Day with the aim to continue promoting the love for books and learning among children. Books have proved to be powerful tools to combat isolation, reinforce ties between people, expand our horizons, while stimulating our minds and creativity so let’s celebrate the importance of reading, foster children\'s growth as readers and promote a lifelong love of reading on our own or with our children.

Grieving I.A. Rehman’s sad demise

We at ITA are extremely saddened at the sudden demise of Human Rights Icon and Humanist Sir I.A. Rehman. He was a strong supporter of ASER Pakistan and had always participated very actively. We are at a profound loss and we will always remember him and his immense contributions for generations to come. Rest in peace sir!

Ramzan Giving

This Ramzan, join hands with ITA to fulfill the dream of an educated and prosperous society. Make your donations work for children and families in Ramzan and COVID-19. To donate, please visit http://itacec.org/donations.