June 22, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 21: The United States will continue supporting Pakistan in the education sector to raise the quality of teaching and learning here, said the new USAID mission director, Ms Anne Aarnes.

She was speaking at the 4th Inter-Provincial conference hosted by the USAID-funded Education Sector Reforms Assistance (ESRA) programme at the Academy for Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) here on Thursday.

“USAID is pleased to fund programmes like ESRA that support the Ministry’s own reform agenda,” said Ms Anne.

She expressed pleasure over the fact that USAID-funded education programmes had reached some districts, communities and schools and most importantly, children who were in most need.

Minister of State for Education, Ms. Anisa Zeb Tahirkhaili, who chaired the first and the concluding sessions of the conference said that the overall objective of ESRA was to strengthen education within the devolved local government system.

The Programme has been working in two provinces and across twelve remote districts of the country and these inter-provincial conferences are important and promote dialogue among the different tiers of government.