e-Newsletter, June 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.

High Touch High Tech Summit 2021

The Education Commission Asia held the world’s largest High Touch High Tech Summit from June 29-July 2, 2021. ITA participated in the conversation on the Education Technology in Pakistan: Promise, Achievements & Challenges. The talk featured speeches by Wajiha Qamar & Mohyuddin Wani of Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training Pakistan, Vanessa Edna Lee of UNICEF Pakistan, CEO ITA Baela Raza Jamil and Mahboob Mahmood of Knowledge Platform. The panelists talked about the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on educational institutes and the increased learning gap of students. The talk appreciated the work done by the government and the partner organization such as ITA in using EdTech to help students without access schools or resources.

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)

ASER 2021 - Measuring the Impact of Covid-19 on Education in Pakistan

ASER has conducted a study in 16 rural districts, reaching 9300+ households, and 25,000+ children aged 3 to 16 to measure the impact of Covid-19 on Education. The study is important to understand the way Covid-19 has impacted the country\'s progress on SDG 4.1. and Article 25A. The research team is now in the process of finalizing the writeup for reporting the impact of Covid-19 on Education in Pakistan. A summary of the findings has also been published in the Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2021. Soon after the report write up, the dissemination process will begin.

ASER 2021 - Katchi Abadi Pilot Survey

The ASER Pakistan research team is working to map learning levels of Pakistani children to previously unexplored geographic zones - the Katchi Abadis (informal urban settlements) of Pakistan. In the first stage, a pilot is being conducted in Lahore, Karachi-West, Karachi-Korangi and Karachi-Malir. In each district, using the government\'s updated lists, 30 settlements have been sampled for survey. From each settlement, 20 households are to be surveyed. After comprehensive training of volunteers, data collection and data entry has been completed. A comprehensive report is expected in July.

Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2021

ITA with support from UNESCO\'s GEM Report is drafting a country study, for their regional report that will map the non-state activity at different levels of education, and analyze policies and regulations on paper, and how state-non-state relations and activities function. The study aims to address the age-old question – what can and should be the role of non-state providers in education. For this purpose, after a comprehensive literature review, qualitative interviews are being conducted with Government officials, stakeholders in the private sector as well as academics and policy influencers. Based on the initial interviews, a draft has also been submitted.

Children’s Literature Festival

Pakistan Learning Festival Gilgit Baltistan

ITA and CLF hosted the first Pakistan Learning Festival Gilgit Baltistan 2021. With 80 sessions, over 100+ resource persons (RPs), 30 from GB itself, and participation of RPs from 5 countries, the PLF GB was attended by more than 13,000 students and teachers over 3 days in a COVID safe environment.

CLF Young Author Award - Call for Donation

Donate for the CLF Young Author Award 2020-21 and become a part of our winning author’s journey to become accomplished writers.

Pakistan Literacy Project

Under the PLP program, ITA has been distributing the 28 Adapted Titles in Urdu to key figures in education. These are a set of books from 10 different countries that have been translated with the purpose of promoting them as reading material that will help children develop their reading, comprehension and writing skills. CEO ITA, Baela Raza Jamil was delighted to present this collection of 28 Adapted Titles to Dr. Murad Raas in partnership with Room to Read under Pakistan Literacy Project in collaboration with School Education Department, Government of the Punjab, Government of Punjab.

Dissemination of 300 PLP Library Packs across Sindh in 23 districts

ITA Sindh Team has successfully distributed around 250 Library Packs across Sindh to public and low-cost private community schools. ITA has successfully adapted 28 Room to Read (RtR) titles into Urdu. These vibrant and beautifully illustrated storybooks under Library Packs have been successfully distributed to schools/organizations such as The Citizens Foundation, Sindh Education Foundation, Zindagi Trust and Sindh Government Schools.

Aasman Se Batein

Aasman se Batein Second Chance is a project of ITA aimed at getting out of schools girls back to school. The program has successfully kicked off in Bahawalpur district. Numerous Out of School girls joined the program with the passion to learn and become a part of the mainstream education system.

Capacity building training for teachers

Under Aasman Se Batein, teachers of all partner schools have been provided with capacity building training on the strands, teaching methodology (CAMaL, TaRL), assessment tools, monitoring tools and academic calendar etc. In total, 30 teachers attended 2 days of training on CAMaL methodology to get command on teaching basic literary and numeracy to never enrolled beneficiaries.

Siyani Sahelian

ITA in collaboration with SOC Films has released the "Siyani Sahelian – Advancing Action of Adolescent Girls" documentary on YouTube. The documentary highlights SOC Films’ collaboration with ITA focusing on girls’ education in South Punjab. For the outreach of this collaborative program to over 60 towns and villages, SOC Films also produced short animated films – the first of which is released along with the Siyani Sahelian documentary, titled Civil Society and the role of Women. This film highlights the importance of female participation in society as they actively try and fulfil their civic responsibilities.

Uraan

ITA’s Uraan project, supported by Oxfam in Pakistan, came to a close in 2021 with 70 girls having completed their training their preferred education/skill development bands. The #Uraan Girls have been with the project since 2016 and have seen an interesting set of interventions to aid them in their path to become leaders of tomorrow. This group of 70 superwomen are well on their way to take forward their unique set of skill that they have developed over the course of years with ITA and pave the way for empowerment within their communities. We look forward to witnessing their achievements in the future!

Safe School Reopening Pilot

The schools reopened on June 1, SRP teams accelerated their mentorship and monitoring visits, 14 out of 20 schools were reached. Practices on the hand washing, mask wearing, social distancing etc., were observed. The vigilance committee members of the respective schools were gathered for reviewing the School Mitigation Action Plan and necessary guidance was provided to improve the practices. The staff was guided on downloading the app for telehealth services. Virtual ToT was conducted for male teachers on Mindfulness and Yoga techniques during June, who learnt and replicated the techniques in their respective schools. The female teachers also replicated the yoga exercises in their respective classes.

Playful Parenting and Schools Reopening

As schools reopened, our teachers and field staff conducted door to door campaigns to reach out parents and organized community meetings with mothers to ensure high enrollment of students back in schools. Highlights of June 2021 schools activities includes accelerated learning activities to revise core concepts of syllabus, students’ assessment, and examination schedule and paper development.

Telenor Safe Internet and School Outreach program

Telenor Safe Internet and School Outreach program kicked off this month with a bang with participation in the highly anticipated Pakistan Learning Festival in Gilgit. This event brought in over 3200+ students and teachers from the area. The team also successfully branched out into Murree as they conducted training in the prestigious Lawrence College. The collection of students at Lawrence college and its faculty were extremely excited to have the team give digital safety training to all age groups. The Telenor SISOP team also collaborated with Roots Millennium school system to have training sessions in all their Islamabad schools. With such collaborations, the total number of students trained in the second quarter, till date, is 103,401.

Facebook - We Think Digital

Under the We Think Digital project by Facebook, ITA is working to spread awareness on Digital Literacy and Safety among children and youth of our nation to become responsible digital citizens. Our team at ITA has successfully on boarded 450+ schools across Pakistan, with 1,200+ trained teachers. With reopening of schools, our teams increased engagement with schools. The educationists working with us believed in the significance of delivering the message of responsible digital citizenship and successfully trained 30,652 students all across Pakistan.

Life Skills for Kids (LSK)

LSK organized an event on World Day against Child Labor on June 12 where students participated in different competitions like art work, speech, visual performance, poetry and slogan making. Storytelling session was also organized by the ITA Pakistan Literacy Project team.

LSK boys training courses

The first batch of 24 LSK boys have started attending Technical courses (Electrician and AC/Refrigeration) with the collaboration of Pakistan Industrial Technical Assistance Centre (PITAC). FC interns have also been involved in providing trainings and delivering sessions on important life skills. In addition to that the new Computer Labs have been set up for computer courses and new material has been prepared in LSK vocational centers. One of the students prepared a speaker by using different wires and other parts, clearly showing their learning potential and interest. The Schools are operating under strict SOP guidelines and 50% attendance per day is ensured according to government regulation.

ITA’s increasing footprint in Sindh

We are pleased to share that ITA has been successfully awarded two new locations in Sukkur District Sindh to develop elementary schools with Sindh Education Foundation under New Foundation Assisted Schools (FAS) Program. On June 30, in SEF Regional Office Sukkur, the Award Signing Agreement for FAS schools was held for embellishment of schools. The establishment of both schools at awarded locations will start from July 2021.

World Environment Day

On June 5, ITA celebrated World Environment Day by participating in the countrywide plantation drive to save planet Earth. ITA employees took part in planting trees and flowers around the office to encourage people to take action and play their part in creating a better environment.

World Day against Child Labor

On June 12, ITA observed the World Day Against Child Labor with the help of students from Aagahi School System Rasool Bux Brohi Shikarpur assisted by the Sindh Education Foundation Day. Students from Grade 4 and 5 created art work demanding to end child labor.