Continuing Malala's Dream - Educating Pakistan

Education systems in Pakistan and around the world are working to respond to the unexpected outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Globally, 188 countries closed education institutions, leading to an estimated 1.60 billion students unable to attend schools. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the education system of Pakistan encompasses over 317,000 schools with enrolment of almost 50.3 million students and over 1.83 million teachers. The system is further composed of almost 197,000 public schools and over 120,000 private schools. The public sector provides access to about 28.68 million students to complete their education while the remaining 21.60 million students are catered by the private sector of education.

During the current pandemic, over 50.0 million schoolgoing children have been unable to attend school for the past four months as the government continues to keep schools closed to ensure the health and safety of students and teachers. We already have over 22.5 million children that are out of school.

The post-COVID impact due to the prolong closure of school will have a massive impact on Pakistan’s already fragile education system, such as learning gaps, and social/emotional/mental well-being. This could also lead to no promotion next year, ultimately leading to a halt in continuity of education.

The Covid-19 pandemic is expected to impact us for a long time. Millions of children have no access to school and for our already fragile education system this is indeed an unprecedented situation in the history of education. However, we must embrace this unexpected change and apply an alternate approach to ensure continuity in education.

This shocking statistic and the poor state of Education in Pakistan since the very beginning is the very reason that Fatima Memorial Hospital took the initiative of commencing the NUR Community Outreach Program (NCOP) in the year 1985. The objective of NCOP is to act as a catalyst of change in order to bring about socio-economic development of the underprivileged communities, via an integrated approach to education, healthcare and economic empowerment.

NUR Foundation has been providing education to the underprivileged communities (without any discrimination of age/gender/caste/religion, etc) through its chain of formal and informal schools in underdeveloped and neglected areas of Lahore. Every year, approximately 1800 students pass out from our schools. The current students enrolled in NCOP Schools located in Malikpur/Talwara, Lakhudair, Nainsukh and Gajjumatta total 1476.

In addition to this, NUR Foundation has also started the initiative of Adult Literacy Program in which 30 adult females are currently enrolled. The objective of this program is to provide the basic level of education to adult women who have never been to a school before.

With current Pandemic (COVID19) around, we have more challenges to address. The Rural Areas need more help and assistance, so that our teachers can educate the people about the disease and also keep educating the children on individual basis with all precautions.

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