ISLAMABAD, May 19: Around 100 public-sector schools in Rawalpindi district will soon be upgraded from primary to middle level and middle to secondary level.

This was stated by Rawalpindi District Nazim Raja Tariq Kiani while speaking at the opening session of a five-day workshop on Early Childhood Education (ECE), organized by Children’s Resources International (CRI) here on Monday.

The workshop is being attended by 220 teachers, representatives of organizations dealing with education and international trainers from the US, South Africa and Hungary.

“We have undertaken an exercise to upgrade different government schools through enhanced financial assistance from the government,” the Nazim said.

Mr Kiani informed the participants that the Rawalpindi administration had already identified different schools, which required upgradation.

He said an amount of Rs45 million had been earmarked to provide furniture to 788 different public schools before the end of the current financial year. A meeting in this regard is scheduled for May 22 in which the work order for the furniture will be awarded, he added.

“The management is also pursuing a policy to construct additional classrooms, boundary walls and new buildings for the extension of the existing schools.”

Mr Kiani said 47 new primary schools would be set up in the district.

He assured the participants that soon there would be no shelterless schools in the district and the administration would supports all the efforts aimed at improving the quality of education.

The Nazim highlighted the need for ensuring 100 per cent literacy and said around 90 per cent literacy rate had been achieved in the district.

He asked the CRI to extend its programme to another 100 schools of Rawalpindi district so that more and more marginalized schools could benefit from the new methodology to check the dropout rate.

Replying to a question about water scarcity, he said Rawalpindi was facing shortage of 7.5 million gallons per day owing to which the administration had initiated water management in the city.

A pipeline from the Rawal Dam filtration plant has been closed down because of leakages, however a new one will be laid in addition to sewage lines at a cost of Rs200 million, he added.

Earlier, the senior education advisor of USAID, Sarah Wright, said children were the future builders, therefore the teachers should impart better education to them. The USAID is pleased to work with the CRI as there is nothing more important than the children, she added.

The chief coordinator (trainings) of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), Rafiq Tahir, said the FDE started work with the CRI last year and during this one year a lot of changes had been observed in the partner schools.

The dropout rate has reduced in the 35 schools in Islamabad where the CRI methodology is being implemented and the children visit schools regularly, besides the pressure on model schools has also been reduced, he added.

Mr Tahir said, in traditional schools, teachers interaction with the students stopped at a certain stage while in the CRI schools, this interaction was continuous and the plus point was that the parents were also involved in children’s learning process.

He said the CRI methodology was activity-based learning and its implementation had showed improvement in the education sector.

Executive District Officer (education) Jalil Tariq said the selection of schools for the implementation of this methodology was a difficult task as these had to be selected in marginalized areas.