Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi

Mid-line assessment has been conducted for students enrolled in CPB/TaRL camps COHORT-I for all 3100 students in the districts Ghotki and Shikarpur. The children's learning levels have improved and it is promising that children are overcoming their learning losses.

ITA conducted tests and interviews of Para-Teachers for establishing learning recovery camps for teaching at the right level (TaRL), and Chalo-Parho-Barho (CPB) for COHORT-II. The teachers will play a vital role in helping children to overcome their learning losses aggravated during the Sindh Monster Floods 2022.

In the first week of March, 40 Para-Teachers for the district, Shikarpur, and 47 Para-Teachers for the district Ghotki were trained on the learning methodology of the TARL/CPB Camps COHORT-II. The five-day training was undertaken to ensure the establishment of learning recovery camps for teaching at the right level (TARL), Chalo-Parho-Barho (CPB) over 55-60 days, for addressing foundational literacy and numeracy for 30,000 in-school children at risk and out-of-school children (drop-outs & never enrolled) ages 6-13 years in the districts Ghotki and Shikarpur.

In the second week of February, cluster coordinators from both districts started the baseline assessment in the targeted schools of their respective clusters. 11- 15 schools were assigned to each coordinator to collect the data. The agenda of this whole activity was to gather data on the children who are at risk and need to enroll in the CPB camps. All the data was inserted in the online data sheet that was accessed by the research team to identify the children at risk. The cluster coordinators have completed the survey of 100 schools for 3600 students (87 TARL Camps 100) and have gotten the baseline data of 4900 children.

Dr Rachel Hinton, Global Education Research Lead, Research and Evidence Division, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and Ms. Anna Penido, Executive Director, Lemann Center for Leadership and Equity in Education, Brazil visited Pakistan from March 1st – 9th 2023. The high-level strategic visit was planned to support education sector initiatives in Pakistan with a focus on foundational learning, system level engagement for equity and quality, and building coalitions across borders in the areas of program design, capacity building and research-based advocacy. Both the guests from UK and Brazil engaged in a series of field visits, meetings and seminar/ discussions with key stakeholders (demand and supply side) in Lahore, Islamabad and Swabi.

The trip began, on 2nd March, 2023, with a visit to Sanjan Nagar, SNPET-HSS - a not for profit school where they met with the head-teachers, teachers and students, observed the day to day learning activities of the students and fully immersed themselves in the foundational learning experience.

On 3rd March 2023, a seminar on Coalitions for Foundational Learning: Lessons from Brazil and Pakistan a roundtable event was hosted by the LUMS - School of Education, and facilitated by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi. Dr Rachel Hinton, Global Education Research Lead, Research and Evidence Division, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and Ms. Anna Penido, Executive Director, Lemann Center for Leadership and Equity in Education, Brazil opened the session with their ideas and reflections. These were about education coalitions and Dr. Rachel Hinton pointed out the research aspects which goes into making coalitions for foundational learning.

Ms. Anna Penido talked about the education coalitions from the perspective of Brazil and how to municipalities in Ceara and Sobral are the perfect cases of the workings and the foundations of education coalitions. The success stories are driven by data and research which complemented the points put forward by Dr. Rachel. A discussion was held on how these can be streamlined for Pakistani cohort.

On 6th March 2023, a delegation consisting of Ms. Anna Penido, Executive Director, Lemann Center for Leadership and Equity in Education, Brazil, Ms. Baela Raza Jamil, CEO ITA, Mr. Ahmed Kamal, Deputy Secretary Education, E&SED, Dr. Rukhsana, Planning Officer, E&SED, Mr. Waqas Imran, Data Analyst, ITA, Ms. Amna Javed, Project Manager, ITA and Mr. Shakeel Ahmed, Provincial Coordinator KPK, ITA visited Sadri Jadeed, Swabi. This visit was momentous due to the fact that the data gathered from Sadri Jadeed by the village volunteers was presented to the E&SED as well as the village council. Secondly, the meeting with the village council was significant because the community gathered to decide their fate and future in terms of foundational learning and education. This meeting was highly successful and some wonderful action points came out of it as a result in the Village Cluster chosen from KP.

A Decade of Learning was a two-day event to be held in Islamabad on March 7-8, 2023. It was hosted by the British High Commission in collaboration with a range of national and international partners, including ITA. The event was conducted in two separate/distinguishable but connected activities. The first part of the event presented the core milestones achieved and lessons learnt from over a decade of UK support to education in Pakistan. This was followed by some high-level policy conversations on learning from the last decade in Pakistan. The sessions were structured to identify policy priorities and inform the direction of future reforms in the country. Ms. Baela Raza Jamil presented and chaired some prominent sessions on Foundational Learning and Ms. Anna Penido presented the learnings from Brazil and the South-South Fellowship to the larger national and international audience.

Representatives of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Dr. Rachel Hinton, Senior Education and Social Development Adviser at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) UK., Ms. Anna Penido, Executive Director for the Lemann Center for Leadership and Equity in Education and Mr. Sohail Wajid, Team Lead and Private Sector Development Advisor at FCDO Pakistan along with CEO, ITA Ms. Ms. Baela Raza Jamil, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) visited Govt. Girls Primary School Nishter on 2nd March 2023. CEO, DEA Lahore Mr. Tariq Habib, Ms. Azra Parveen, DEO-E(W-F), Ms. Zara Batool, Principal GGPS Nishtar and DM PLP Farah Shah welcomed the guests. ITA Team briefed them about the Pakistan Literacy Project. A Read aloud activity was also held by Ms. Madiha in the library. . Meanwhile, the PLP team Ms. Farah Shah and Izzah Ramzan briefed Dr. Rachel and Ms. Anna about the library management and reading activities.

Ms. Baela Raza (ITA), Mr. Sohail Wajid (FCDO) and Mr. Tariq Habib (SED) discussed about expanding the libraries in the district for enhancing reading habits through libraries among children in government schools. After visiting the library, the FDO team met Insaaf Afternoon program students and talked to them about their goals and life struggles. The team also had a detailed discussion with the principal about the enrollment, library's impact and online monitoring and evaluation processes of the school.

During the month of March several activities for Differently Abled Children were held by the Pakistan Literacy Project (PLP) team at the children library complex.

10th March 2023: A Read Aloud session was conducted in the Special Section of CLC. This was an interactive session with an inclusive environment where children and children with special needs attended the session which was conducted by Ms. Izzah Ramzan, Coach Mentor PLP. Ms. Izzah held an interactive read aloud session about animals playing hide and seek using props of characters/ and talked about their favorite animals. After the story, the kids were given paper and paint to paint anything they like, they took their time and drew beautiful things. The kids enjoyed the story and were quite responsive.

March 17th 2023: Writer's workshop: A three-day Writers Workshop (WW) for children's storybooks, organized by the Room to Read and PLP- Book Production and Publishing team. Mr. Mahesh Pathirathna of RtR was to conduct the Writers Workshop, facilitated by Rumana Husain of ITA, the main objective of the Writers Workshop was for its participants to fully understand the concept of interesting stories for picture books for the 4- to 8-year-old age-group. The focus was also on the process of writing, and to better understand the story development method. A total of 24 participants participated from 3 publishers i.e., Alif Laila Book Bus Society, National Book Foundation and Maqbool Academy

March 2st 2023: reviewers' workshop A Reviewers Meeting was held on Saturday, March 18 at the ITA office. Reviewers from the Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore (PCTB), the National Curriculum Council, Islamabad (NCC), and the Sindh Textbook Board (STBB) and Directorate of Curriculum, Assessment & Research (DCAR) both from Jamshoro, Sindh were invited to review the draft stories prepared by the writers during the WW. At the end of the meeting, Husain thanked them for their positive feedback and valuable suggestions.

Capacity Building Workshop on Managing Active Libraries for Early to Middle School SED Educators
Several One-day Capacity Building Workshop on Managing Active Libraries for Early to Middle School SED Educators have been held in the district Bahawalpur. The workshops were conducted by the PLP team Bahawalpur in several public and private schools with the support of DEA and QAED, Bahawalpur. The purpose of the workshop is to train the teachers on Library Management and Library Period Management to enhance reading habit among kids. The workshop also focused on establishing child-friendly libraries and provide students with books according to their levels.

Another Read Aloud Activity with Props was conducted by the PLP team held on the account of World Down Syndrome Day which was organized by the Children Library Complex. Ms. Mehar-un-nissa read the story "Anokha Bagh" which gives a message of inclusivity and acceptance