KARACHI, Dec 30: Despite a passage of about two and a half years, the Sindh education department has been failing to place over 5,500 women education visitors and pesh imams at union council levels
, as motivating forces, under a project aimed at promoting compulsory education in Sindh.
According to sources in the education department, the project was approved by the Sindh government as part of its annual development programme 2002-03, but could not be materialized due to financial snags.
As many as 1,093 women visitors and 5,465 pesh imams could not be engaged, and scholarships to students as an incentive towards enhancement of primary school enrolment could not effected, as the department had not been able to get the amount required for the purpose transferred in time to various district governments.
Insiders say that only six months are left till the sanctioned three year-period of the project in question is completed. However, in view of the traditional lethargic attitude of the education and finance managers of the government and local government elections in 2005, it is unlikely that Sindh government will be able to see a launching of the much emphasized project in the field, it has been learnt.
At a time when local government elections have been announced, the sitting district and union councillors are unlikely to take up the matter pertaining to hiring of lady education visitors and pesh imam.
Under the compulsory education project in question, women visitors and pesh imams were to be identified and recruited by the district governments in consultation with local NGOs. The planned workforce was supposed to work for a period of three years.
In case the project is launched, woman education visitors would be imparted proper training by some NGOs and their monthly remuneration would be Rs1,000. They would be given the task to motivate their community to send children to schools for primary education.
During the course of monitoring enrolment at schools, women visitors would also identify poor students so that they could be given Rs5,000 per year as an incentive amount for education.
The women in question would also ensure proper functioning of schools in their areas and submit reports with their recommendations for solving the under-enrolment problems to the authorities concerned.
Under the project, pesh imams of mosques would be involved in raising primary schools enrolment. They would be paid an honorarium of Rs1,000 per year, and would highlight the role of education in development in their regular sermons and at other gatherings.
The ADP scheme in question suffered its first blow in 2002-03 when the fund was not made available to the education department. In 2003-04, the Literacy and Non-Formal Education directorate of the Sindh government surrendered the amount to the government, as it was released at the extreme end of the financial year.
When contacted, Prof Abdul Latif Silro, the director of the Literacy and Non-Formal Education, Sindh, said that an amount to the tune of Rs12 million had been released by the government recently and efforts were on to transfer the amount in question to district governments.
We are hopeful that woman visitors and pesh imams would start functioning in January, he added, saying that once the project was kicked off, the government could be requested for revising the project concept paper in question, so that the force in question could be deployed for a period of 37 months, as per the original plan.
