The Secretary, School Education & Literacy Department, Mr. Qazi Shahid Pervaiz, after taking charge, visited Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) for the first time on Tuesday, September, 2018. He met the Managing Director, SEF, Ms. Naheed Shah Durrani, the Deputy Managing Director and the Directors of the Sindh Education Foundation.
MD-SEF provided an overview about the Foundation, its institutional framework and its journey over the last 25 years. A brief introduction was given about Foundation’s major Programs, modus operandi and the overall regulatory framework. While sharing about Foundation’s journey, MD apprised the Secretary, SE&LD about the steps taken by the Foundation to consolidate and strengthen its portfolio. The Deputy Managing Director-SEF informed the Secretary that SEF launched a school restructuring drive in 2015 which is being taken forward cautiously. He said that the restructuring has been designed on the framework of improved school environment, academic capacity building and modernization of knowledge delivery systems. Since the start of the restructuring phase, there has been a growth of 112 percent in students’ enrolment across all SEF schools, with an average of 250 students per school which is on the back of 30 percent growth in the number of schools, he updated. Lately SEF is moving ahead with ICT based learning in select Schools.
Acting Director, Training & Assessment Department, SEF, shared that School partners are supported through per child per month subsidy model, provision of learning material including free text books, and continued professional development of teachers, learning support and institutional evaluations. She further shared that quality is supervised by way of school monitoring and students’ assessments. The oversight & accountability mechanism connects access with the quality measures, she added.
MD-SEF apprised the Secretary SE&LD that the Govt. of Sindh has already assigned SEF the responsibility to work in tandem with the department and assist in reaching out to Out of School Students by way of operationalizing some of the viable closed schools. She further shared that SEF has already carried out a survey in 05 districts including; Thatta, Sujawal, Badin, Dadu and Jamshoro and submitted its report with the Department. Another survey in Mirpurkhas, Tando Muhammad Khan and Tando Allah Yar has also been completed regarding operationalization of viable closed Schools. Secretary SE&LD was further informed that over 200 dysfunctional school buildings have already been operationalised by SEF in different districts.
In terms of horizontal expansion, another avenue mentioned was the collaboration with M/s SRSO for the Govt. School portfolio held by M/s SRSO that at present includes 83 individual schools and 09 cluster schools with an enrollment of 7588 students, whereby the planned arrangement under the collaboration is likely to raise the enrollments up to 20,000 in next few years.
MD SEF also mentioned the Foundation’s effort for the transition of students earlier supported by DFID through BRAC and TCF, to the post primary level. She further mentioned the ongoing deliberations with M/s TCF for a scalable partnership and M/s OMV for sustaining the portfolio of 67 Government Primary Schools in Khairpur, Ghotki and Sukkur districts.
The Secretary, SE&LD, appreciating the efforts of SEF, underscored the need for collaborative effort of all the stakeholders for the revival of the education system in the province.