ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: US ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell on Wednesday said the US government would provide $25 million fund to the Education Sector Reforms Assistance Programme (Esra) from 2003 to 2008.
She was speaking at a Grants Award Ceremony (phase-1) held at a local hotel during which she presented the first grant of $4 million (Rs232 million) to Esra. The grant has been funded by USAID through Esra and awarded to 12 organizations, which have the expertise and experience of strengthening capacity within the existing education system.
Ms Haroona Jatoi, Joint Education Advisor Planning and Curriculum Wing, presided over the ceremony on behalf of the education minister, Zobaida Jalal.
These resources would be given to help develop programmes to train teachers in new methodologies, help administrators to be better managers, ensure that more women and youth have access to literacy classes and support many more public and private partnerships and district governments working in an efficient way to bring the benefits of education to the people in their districts.
The total USAID support through the ESRA grants programme is $60 million (Rs3.4 billion).
In the first phase, grants have been awarded to support the expansion of ongoing activities/initiatives that have demonstrated successful results within USAID and ESRA’s mandate. Todate, the grants committee of the ESRA has approved two-year term grant awards to the NGOs from different parts of all the four provinces and AJK.
These NGOs include Alliance for Quality Education, Faran Education System, The Education Foundation, Indus Resource Centre, Sun Development Foundation, Health and Nutrition Development Society, Aga Khan Education Services, Bunyad Literacy Community Council, Sarhad Rural Support Programme, Pakistan Village Development Programme, Society for Community Support for Primary Education and Institute for Development Studies and Practices.
Under the ESRA, the US government extends financial and technical assistance to the education sector, including the educational policy development and planning, the ongoing professional development of teachers and education administrators and improving the literacy rate particularly among women.
The programme also encourages and supports public-private sector partnership and public community initiatives seeking to achieve improvements in the educational sector.
The ambassador said the ESRA programme was based on the concept of working together with the government and the community to achieve a mutual goal. Experience had taught us that the key to a successful collaboration was to ensure that whatever we do was based on real needs and was owned by all the stakeholders.
She was confident that throughout the implementation of the projects, accountability and transparency would be maintained. The ambassador also informed the participants that she also intended to visit each of the projects and would also encourage the staff of the USAID to do the same not only to monitor but also to get encouragement from the partners.