ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a national workshop called upon education actors to jointly work to scale up the accelerated learning programmes (ALPs) to provide education to disadvantaged, overage, out-of-school children and youth, who missed out on or had their education interrupted.

Jointly organised by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the workshop was dedicated to accelerated learning programmes and attended by over 80 participants, including government officials and education actor representatives from Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Discussions focused on best practices as well as opportunities for better coordination and collaboration to address education needs in Pakistan.

Experts discuss opportunities for better coordination to address national education needs

Speaking on the occasion, UNHCR Representative Philippa Candler extended appreciation to the Pakistan government for its continued support to refugees and refugee education.

“It is alarming that over 250 million children are out-of-schools across the world and 26 million of these are from Pakistan, among them 500,000 refugee children,” she said.

Ms Candler stated that programmes such as the ALP were an essential component in supporting out of school refugee adolescents and youth to access and complete primary education and transition to secondary education, especially girls and young women.

She underlined the need for collective efforts and solutions to improve situation of education in Pakistan for all. She reaffirmed UNHCR’s commitment to support the development of policies and programmes that benefit both refugee and host communities’ children.

JICA Country Chief Naoaki Miyata said Pakistan stands at a critical juncture where 67pc of its population is under the age of 30. JICA has been focusing on human capital development through enhancing access to quality education and this conference will pave the ways for advocating impactful measures through accelerated education policy to address the out-of-school challenges, he said.

Senior Joint Secretary Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training Sohail Akhtar Malik highlighted the urgency of the situation, including the declaration by the prime minister of an education emergency. He underscored the need for adopting innovative, cost-effective solutions and approaches to provide right to education to out-of-school children especially through digital technology.

The participants also shared good practices and efforts underway to address the education crisis, including Allama Iqbal Open University delivering ALP (middle-tech) to around 3,000 children across the country.

Provincial level consultations will now get underway followed by national technical level discussions in September with a goal to agree on a unified approach to accelerated education, ensuring these programmes are accredited and effectively support children in need, regardless of their status.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2024