ISLAMABAD: “Out of the 13,000 schools in Balochistan, only 2,500 are for girls,” said Balochistan Additional Secretary Education Mohammad Tayyab Lehri.

He was speaking at the concluding ceremony of the five-year project ‘Balochistan Educational Programme’ carried out by Save the Children with support from Embassy of the Netherlands.

Mr Lehri said Balochistan was a province with a vast expanse of territory and there was a need to provide education to children closer to their homes.

“We have divided the province in 23000 pockets but there are only 13000 schools in the province. Another 10,000 schools should be built,” he said.

He said under the project Save the Children had trained and appointed 300 teachers which the Balochistan government was considering regularising.

“The great thing is that people in Balochistan are pro education, they want to send their children to schools. Even terrorists have not attacked girls schools as they have in Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The only problem is resources,” Mr Lehri said.

Speaking to participants, Education and Child Development Manager for Save the Children in Balochistan Haroon Rasheed Kasi said 105,173 children were enrolled through the programme. Out of them 66,026 were girls.

Five-year long Balochistan Educational Programme carried out by Save the Children concludes

“An amount of Euros 10.28 million were provided by the Embassy of the Netherlands with aim of improving the education system by increasing access particularly for girls and increasing the chances of them staying in school by improving the quality of education, school health and nutrition,” he said.

“As many as 340 schools of Quetta, Killa Abdullah and Mastung were improved in the project,” he said.

Renovation of schools and construction of additional classes taken up by the project has enabled the retention of 83 per cent girls going from primary to middle and 92 per cent girls going from middle to secondary level.

“Under the project 105 Early Childhood Education Centers have also been developed, 200 schools have been provided facilities such as washrooms, boundary walls and water tanks,” he added.

Mr Kasi said the project also organised walks and seminars to raise awareness of the importance of education.

“As many as 1,100 teachers have been trained on child friendly teaching methodologies while more than 10,000 children have been trained on child rights and child protection. Health and hygiene kits have also been provided to 73,000 children,” he added.

Kingdom of Netherlands Embassy, Deputy Head of Mission Frans van Rijn said education was very important and the embassy had been supporting it for many years. “A country’s growth is tied to education. We are focusing on girls’ education because the gender gap can be reduced by educating girls,” he said.

He said the embassy was grateful to teachers and parents who cooperated with the project. A report on the project was also shared with participants.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014