SWABI, Aug 5: The United Nations Fund for Children (Unicef) has stepped upits campaign for imparting quality education to young girls who do not have means to go to schools.

This was stated by the Unicef representative for Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES), New York, Mansoor Ali, while inspecting the under-construction project of the Unicef at primary girls school Parmuli No. 1 late on Wednesday. The programme officer in the Unicef office at Islamabad, Mohammad al-Fateh, was along with him.

Keeping in mind the lack of education facilities, he said the Unicef had started a broad programme for educating the girls and identified different areas. The Best Basic Education and Employable Skill (Best) Training is a social mobilization unit in the district and the Unicef has assigned it the responsibility to approach the people to send their daughters/sisters to the schools.

In each union council, the Best has constituted a Volunteer Network Forum (VNT) for achieving the Unicef objectives. Mr Ali said the Best representatives would make all-out efforts that the facilities provided by the Unicef should be utilized by both the community and school children in each union council of the district.

"The schemes should be durable because getting education is a continuous process," he said, adding that the selection of the schemes should be made on merit. He said the main thrust of the Unicef was to provide education facilities to the children, particularly to the girls who lacked access to education.

Under the five-year plan, the Unicef target was to educate 88 per cent girls in the district, he said, and hoped that it would be achieved. Education, he added, would make the girls able to stand on their own feet and live with dignity and honour in future. Earlier, a briefing was given to him about the WES by a Best representative and he was informed about the on-going activities of the Unicef in the district.