Girls' Right to Education Programme in Pakistan

The programme is in progress in 14 very marginalized districts of the country selected in consultation with concerned education counterparts. Basic indicators for education, such as literacy rate, enrolment and retention of girls, and level of learning outcomes in primary grades are quite low in each selected district. Each province and area based project has three integrated components: (a) improving girls’ access through social mobilization and advocacy, (b) improving retention through improvement in school physical and learning environments – activation of parents-teachers committees (PTCs), school management committees (SMCs) and teachers training in multi-grade teaching and activity-based learning and, (c) capacity building of education officials at district, provincial and national level to create an enabling environment for girls’ education. All projects are implemented through local civil society organizations (CSOs) as implementing partners in consultation with national, provincial and area education departments. The programme is making significant progress in transforming the parental and community perception towards girls' education. Over seven thousand out of school girls have been enrolled in the target areas and retention is ensured through the provision of school facilities and improvement in overall learning environment.