PESHAWAR, April 14: The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and the Social Welfare Department signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for extending voluntary community development in all 24 districts of the NWFP. The MoU was signed by the director volunteerism NCHD, Ghani Marwat, and the secretary social welfare, Noorul Haq, here on Thursday.

The minister of state and chairman NCHD, Dr Nasim Ashraf, and the chief secretary, NWFP, Ijaz Ahmed Qureshi, were also present on the occasion, said a handout.

According to the MoU, in a joint venture, both the organizations will facilitate each other in identification, training and registration of volunteers in the districts. Furthermore, Resource Centres will be established at the district level and capacity building of the social welfare offices at district level will also be practised.

Earlier, in a meeting between Dr Ashraf and Mr Qureshi, the achievements and progress of the NCHD in the NWFP were discussed.

The minister of state said that the NCHD and provincial government would sign an MoU next September to expand Universal Primary Education to eight more districts of the NWFP.

He said that data collection will be started soon by the education department and will be verified by the NCHD. Teachers will be trained on data collection, enrolment and prevention of dropout of school children, Dr Nasim Ashraf added.

About the Fata, Dr Nasim Ashraf said that expansion to Fata is under consideration and soon all Fata would be functional in all the core programmes of the NCHD.

The primary aim of expansion to Fata is to develop the Fata like other parts of the country, Dr Nasim Ashraf observed.

About the Adult Literacy Programme, the minister said that the NCHD and Elementary Education Foundation would start centres in all the 24 districts from June.

He said that a total of 4,800 centres would be established, for which, 113 supervisors, 15 sector directors and 240 teachers per district have been recruited and trained.

About the local government, he said that currently the NCHD was conducting training for district and tehsil offices along with EDOs.

He said that Nazims and councillors were trained to deliver effectively while the departments were also provided with technical support.

The NWFP chief secretary, Ijaz Ahmed Qureshi, lauded the efforts of the NCHD and said that they were rendering tremendous services to the ailing communities of NWFP. He was of the view that as soon as the whole of the NWFP was made functional, the province would be developed within no time at all.

On behalf of the provincial government, the chief secretary assured full support to the NCHD in serving the masses.