Status: Completed Start Date: Mar 2015 End Date: Nov 2015 Geographic Coverage: District Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar in Punjab Focus Area: Education SDG Goal: 4 Ensure inclusive and quality education for all Implementing Partner: SPO Funding Partner: PESP-2
The Strengthening Participatory Organization has been working in the thematic area of education for its improved service delivery for past 20 years. The improvement has been basically targeted at the district level that is in conjunction with the SPO’s mission of working with marginalized and excluded groups of society (women, children, youth, religious minorities/ other excluded groups and people with disabilities etc) which provided the opportunity for SPO to extend its support to PESP-2.
The overarching goal of the project was to improve literacy rate in district Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar through Enhancing Enrolment and Retention of Out of School Children in Schools.
The project outcomes achieved through this collaboration with PESP-2 were;
Gender segregated data of Out of School Children (OSC) for age groups (4 – 9 years and 9 – 16 years) for all villages in identified in UCs of districts Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar so it can be available and accessible in a comprehensive database.
Enrollment and retention of 30,000 OSC (i.e 15,000 in each district) ensured in schools (approximately 70% OSC between ages 4 to 9 years and 30% between ages 9 to 16 years). Out of the total enrolled at least 30% are girls.
Tracking mechanism for progress in terms of enrollment and retention in all schools (primary & middle) in all target UCs in districts Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar developed in collaboration with district education departments;
Enrollment and retention in all schools (primary & middle) of target UCs in districts Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar in collaboration with education departments, partner organizations, district forums and school management committees (SMCs).
The SPO’s community forums played a key role in project outreach at village, UCs and district level that represented members from all segments of the society including the School Management Committees (SMCs), marginalized groups such as women, children, youth, religious minorities and people with disabilities. All these forums were effectively utilized for generating demand for sending the out of school children back to schools. The lessons learned through the project intervention in thematic areas of Education were also shared widely with other organizations working on the thematic area to assist the marginalized segments of the community. SPO’s implementation strategy is inclusive, participatory and integrated with other initiatives taken at community level. This project turned out to be successful and also contributed towards providing access to education to children of selected districts of Punjab.
