PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will enrol the under-privileged out-of-school children in private schools in six districts of the province. The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has pledged to provide funds for the pro-poor initiative, according to officials.
An estimated 38,000 children of the poor families would benefit from the initiative – Iqra Faroghe Taleem Voucher Scheme – in the areas where no government school was located in a radius of 1.5 kilometres, officials in the Elementary Education Foundation (EEF), told Dawn.
They said that admission of the poor children in private schools was one of the efforts of the government to reduce the number of out-of-school children. It is estimated that there are approximately 2.6 million out-of-school children between the ages 5 and 14 in the province. They said that the scheme would commence soon, most probably by the end of May with an allocation of Rs500 million.
The EEF has been tasked with executing the plan of enrolling the poor out-of-school children and making arrangements for them. The selected districts for the scheme include Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Mansehra, Mardan and Swat.
Scheme funded by DFID to be launched in six districts in May
The scheme purely meant for the poor children was launched nine months ago as a pilot project in selected areas of five union councils in Peshawar. The children whose parents couldn’t afford to admit them in the private schools are entitled to be selected, said the officials.
The EEF defines the under-privileged segment of the society as labourers, daily wagers, orphans, brick kiln workers etc, they said.
The officials said that the districts where the project would be launched had been selected keeping in view the high number of out-of-school children and prevailing poverty.
They said that the government would pay Rs500 as tuition fee of the students enrolled in the private primary schools through vouchers to be given to the parents. Similarly, Rs600 and Rs800 would be paid for the students enrolled in the middle and high schools, respectively.
Asked about the selection criteria of the private schools, they said that the schools having capacity of absorbing additional students besides their own would be selected for enrolling such poor children.
They said that the selected schools should have all the basic facilities such as furniture, drinking water, boundary walls, lavatories, electricity, etc. According to EEF’s criteria, the classrooms should not be overcrowded rather availability of one teacher for 35 students in high schools and one teacher for 30 students in the primary schools would ensured.
The officials said that a private firm had been hired for door-to-door campaign in the selected districts to identify the poor out-of-school children. They said that age limit of the targeted students had been set at 5-16 years.
The selected students would appear in the academic test after each six months so as to evaluate the performance of the students and teachers of the respective schools. In case, the performance of the students was not satisfactory the EEF would cancel the agreement with the school concerned. They said that the students would be admitted to another nearest private school to continue their education.
Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015
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Press Release 01-04-2015
PESHAWAR: The Tourism Corporation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (TCKP) has planned a number of spectacular projects for the upcoming season to lure more and more domestic and international tourists to the province.
The first event of the many projects is arranging one-day excursion of Abaseen safari train from Peshawar to Attock Khurd and the tourists visit to the historic King Akbar Forte located on the bank of mighty River Indus on April 11. It is followed by a two-day Khanpur festival on April 17-18 wherein water sports, traditional foods, folklore and traditional music, exhibition of cultural and heritage items and others will be the major features of the event.
The TCKP is also making special arrangements for holding Kalash and Shandur festivals in the months of May and June, respectively. This time, the Shandur festival has been brought forward from the routine schedule and is being organized in the first week of June due to Ramazan.
The national and international tourists also have an other good news, as the corporation is soon launching minibus service from the historic Peshawar city to the scenic Naran valley.
Besides these, the TCKP is making efforts for the image building of the province and people, marketing of tourism, investment road show events, infrastructure projects and official launching of web portal.
In addition to these events, the TCKP has also planned to promote religious, eco-friendly and adventurous tourism in the province. A religious tourism resort will be established at the historic Takh Bhai archaeological ruins, a zoological and botanical garden with recreational water sports facilities at Kheshgi village in Nowshera district, chairlift project from Naran to Saiful Maluk Lake, Adventure Theme Park at Nathiagali, tourist resort at historic Hund village on Indus River, up-gradation of chairlift resort at tourist spot in Ayubia and outsourcing of government rest houses.
The policy envisions developing an internationally competitive tourism sector to fully realise its diverse potentials, making tourism a leading economic sector for the province through public-private partnership, said TCKP Managing Director Mushtaq Ahmad Khan.
He said the vision would be realized through an ambitious agenda for private sector-driven tourism development in the province to boost economic growth
The official said that according to the Annual Development Programme 2014-15 the corporation has not lapsed any amount and achieved almost all the benchmarks it had set so far.
These benchmarks included nine ongoing schemes and three new schemes, which are namely: Establishment of an artisan village at Gor Khatri which has been completed and an inauguration ceremony will be held this month.
While working is in process for the water sports tourist facilitation at Khanpur, capacity building of Tourist Services Wing, Development and Restoration of properties transferred to TCKP which will be further leased through Public Private Partnership and Establishment of tourists facilitation centres in Chitral, Galiyat, Naran, Kaghan and Kohistan.
The new schemes of year 2014-15 are include: establishment of picnic spots at Malam Jabba, feasibility study of development of Sum Elahi Mung Mansehra as a tourist resort and the establishment of Tourist Information Centres (TICs) in other cities of the country to facilitate tourists. The corporation has already established two new TICs at Lahore and Karachi.
Giving details, Mushtaq Ahmad said that Rs30 million were allocated in the ADP 2014-15 for holding traditional events that portrayed the local, culture and traditions.
The corporation organised Khanpur Festival, Gor Khatri Arts & Craft Festival, Jashn-e-Hazara at Haripur, Shandur Polo Festival and Broghul Festival. The aim of these events was to attract both domestic and international tourists and showcase the rich cultural heritage.
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Shahi Bagh Peshawar after revamp project: