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Waiting for the Big Cat
PAINTING THE WALL IT did not take so many important people to break the Berlin Wall, whereas it took a high-powered Yankee mission to come downtown Rawalpindi and paint a school wall. The US Ambassador, Nancy Powell, along her entourage comprising USAid Mission Director, Mark Ward and officials of the US embassy and the USAid had come to paint the newly constructed boundary wall of Government Boys Primary School at Dhoke Munshi. As the story goes, the Ambassador had visited the two-room school in Dhoke Munshi last year and had taken commitment from the District Nazim to get a boundary wall constructed around the school. She promised the school children to paint the wall herself. As soon as Tariq Kiyani, the District Nazim Rawalpindi, (after pooling his resources) got the job done, the Ambassador was back to fulfill her promise. The school in Dhoke Munshi is one of the schools helped by Children’s Resource International, which is working on Creating Democratic Schools programme in Pakistan for over a year. It provides training, technical assistance, resources material and active learning classroom equipment to teachers trained in Early Childhood Education in 118 schools. Family Literacy Program is a novel idea that engages families in their children’s education and ensures their participation in school activities. As many as some 118 partner schools have incorporated the methodology involving some 800 parents. “CRI has evolved a parent teacher child triangle that is the crux around which we intend to develop our colossus of community development,” says Mehnaz Akber Aziz, Country Director, CRI. The focus, she said, is on marginalized groups that want change but are generally deprived of even basic enmities. Dhoke Munshi presents a model of the community and local government participation. The primary school for the marginalized community, (with a fee of Rs5 per month) takes five levels of classes in only two rooms. Parents are embraced as partners in their child’s education and have a significant role in the classroom while many mothers join the class after school hours to share the teacher’s burden. The importance of home-school connection is recognized and the impact of this collaboration is tremendous. According to Unicef, the total population of three to five-year-olds in Pakistan in year 2000 was 8.1 million (4.1 million boys and four million girls). Pakistan ranks lowest in most gender related human development indicators. With a female literacy rate at only 24 per cent and the combined female enrolment in education at just 16 per cent, Pakistan has one of the highest dropout rates in the world. Although Parents-Teachers Association is a common phenomenon in elite schools, but to get parents of a place such as Dhoke Munshi involved in activities of school, is very encouraging to see. | ||
HAD it not been for the reopening of air links from January 2, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have crossed Attari to Wagah on foot, and then taken the motorway from Lahore to Islamabad for the forthcoming Saarc Summit. Of course, the mid-stop would have been Bhera for the Indian Premier to have munch thandey cream-roll with doodh patti. Hopping on Daewoo would not have been a bad idea either as Vajpayee is used to coming to Pakistan on bus.|
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