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The UPE Program was started in 2002 and is an ongoing programme of NCHD. The UPE program is currently operational in 117 districts. Based on a tripartite partnership between teachers, volunteers and officials of the Education Department, NCHD has been able to add value to the Education Department in all the four provinces of Pakistan by:

• Enrolling 7,879,253 million (5-7 years) old out-of-school children.

• Increasing net enrolment ratio from 54% to 85% in operational districts

• Reducing dropout rate from 50% to 18% in operational districts (in Kacchi/Pakki classes)

• Carried out house to house survey of 16.3 million house holds, for children aged 0-9 during 2006-07.

• Over 21,000 feeder teachers trained and deployed in primary schools.

• 21,000 Community Based Feeder Schools established.

• Mobilizing 40,000 volunteers in 30,000 villages to support UPE

• Joint Monitoring with district education department

• Preparation of Teachers Guides, Teachers Training Manuals, Lead Trainers and Masters Trainer's Manuals & Student Assessment tools for Primary Education in all four provinces.

• 313,287 primary school teachers trained on UPE, data collection, dropout prevention and improving the quality of education.



UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION


The statistics of Primary Education in Pakistan shows a gross enrollment rate of 70%, with 50% of these children dropping out before reaching the fifth class. Out of these 35% survivors, only one third meet the minimum quality standard that is expected of a child passing primary education. This comes to only 11% of the total target population.

“To ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education.”

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A child getting a chance to express her potential at an NCHD Feeder School

The NCHD's UPE program targets the Out-of-school children, by carrying out data collection of each and every household through door to door survey, with the help of village volunteers and teachers of schools, thus ensuring wider community participation through broad based community meetings. Once the list of out of school children are prepared form the data collected, names of out-of-school children are handed over to the village volunteers for visiting the homes of out-of-school children, for motivating the parents for in time enrollment, and ensuring their enrollment in nearest schools. Where there are no schools within commuting distance, NCHD opened formal community primary based schools, and thus ensured access to schooling. In formal schools, where the number of students increased because of intensive enrollment campaign, NCHD provided additional teachers to cater for the learning needs of new students. A system of dropout prevention was devised, which hinged upon private-public partnership; the teacher and the community volunteers followed up a persuasion strategy, following up on students absent without intimation.

The UPE program is implemented through the public sector institutions. The strategy for UPE remains capacity building of the District Education Department through demonstration and on-job training. For providing support to the Education Department, a field team is made responsible for social mobilization for enrollment and dropout prevention, and is attached with the Education Department for the capacity building of the Education Department. These field tiers also carry intensive monitoring of the activities, and also build the capacity of the Education Department for effective monitoring. The over riding concern remains provision of quality education, which is affected through rigorous teachers training and intensive monitoring of learning achievements of the students.

OBJECTIVES

• Achieving 100% enrollment of children in schools (age 5-7 years) years.
• Reducing the dropout rate from the current level.
• Increasing Minimum Learning Achievement (MLA) from existing 33% to 66%, by ensuring quality education through teachers training.

These objectives are being achieved through the following activities:

• Survey of baseline data to estimate the out of school children
• Community mobilization to promote enrolment of children in schools and reduce dropouts
• Setting up 'feeder' schools for 5-7 year olds with teachers in areas with no government schools to provide access
• Training of primary school teachers in UPE and quality education
• Provision of Feeder teachers to government schools to cater for increased enrolment.

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