Pakistan International Peace & Human Rights Organization
Nindo Shaher District Badin Sindh Pakistan

SPECIFIC CONCLUSION

The Government of Sindh is committed to reduce burden of poverty and ignorance through education. Poverty is not merely income deprivation but it is situation which restrict, political and social needs which are essential for a respectful living. Poors are not only deprived of financial resources but they are denied access of basic needs such as education. The poor can only over come the poverty trap through education and one of the painful experience of poor governance in the past has been low investment in education.

The Government of Sindh has approved a comprehensive policy to bring more children, Boys and Girls to schools as currently nearly half school going children 5-11 are not attending the school mainly due to poverty. The Government has allocated amount for the schemes to promote girls education as illiteracy and ignorance has caused violation of Human Rights and other social issues like early child hood marriages, Karo Kari (Honour killing) and child labour. With deterioration in economic conditions the reduction in enrolment have been witnessed particularly in higher classes. The Government realizing the negative impact of poverty factor has taken decision to provide resources for poverty reduction through education so that no one is denied the right of access to education due to poverty. The Government in the year 2001-02 decided to provide Free Text Books to all Boys and Girls in rural and urban slum areas and provided 172.00 million. During current year it has been decided to provide Free Text Books to all girls and boys from class I � V in all Government school in urban and rural areas and schools being run on non profit basis by NGOs. The Madressah would also be provided Free Text Books under the scheme for which an amount of Rs. 350 million have been allocated during the current financial year i.e. from the period July 2002 to June 2003. Free distribution of books is also essential part of Compulsory Primary Education which has been launched in the province.

To Bring more girls to primary schools a scheme of Oil for education has been launched in selected districts of the province i.e Thatta, Badin, Tharparker, Mirpurkhas and Dadu, with assistant of World Feed Programme. The programme has been very sucessful and girls enrollment has increased more than 200%.

It has been decided that henceforth only women teachers would be appointed/recruited in Government primary schools and all primary schools will be genderless schools. This will provide at least 100000 jobs to educated women in years to come.

To reduce the drop out between class V and VI the Government has taken a very historic decision to providing scholarships at the rate of Rs. 1000/- per year to all Girls studying in Government Schools in class VI � VII and VIII. For this purpose the Government has allocated Rs. 266 million to the District Governments.

Other merit based scholarships are also being provided under Middle School Project being funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other two schemes for promotion to girls education being funded by Government of Sindh. The new project to be known as Decentralized Elementary Education Project (DEEP) is being negotiated with the Asian Development Bank under which scholarships would also be provided to the Girls for class IX-X and also support would be provided to the girls living in remote rural areas for Higher Education.

The Government of Sindh has taken a decision to create an endowment fund of Rs. 1.00 billion for which an amount of Rs. 200 million has been allocated in current year budget. This fund would be managed through education friendly personalities in private sector name of Mr. Shams Qasim Lakha of Agha Khan University and Mr. Jehangir Siddiqui are being considered for this purpose. More personalities from private sector would be added for transparent use of funds. This fund would provide scholarships on merit basis to the students who would be able to get admissions in prestigious public and private Universities/Institutions.

In addition to this during the current year the Government has provided Rs. 10 million for scholarship to poor students which would be utilized for supporting poor but meritorious students for higher education. The Government is committed to ensure that no one should be denied the right for further education due to poverty, but additional support in this noble cause would make a huge difference in fight against ignorance.