Islamabad, January 24, 2022 (PPI-OT): The International Day of Education is observed globally on 24th January every year. Commemorating the day, Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar, SAPM visited Islamabad Government Model College for Girls Kot Hathyal in outskirts of Islamabad to formally launch the Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif application. “Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif” android application has specifically been developed to enable enrolment of children from Ehsaas eligible households at their doorstep. During the event, Dr. Sania herself enrolled a girl in the school stipends programme. She sat with children, mothers and teachers and guided them about the end-to-end digital enrolment process through the newly launched android app.

“Education offers poorest families a ladder out of poverty and a path to prosperity. That is why, Ehsaas is focusing on improving the education access of poorest families through its school stipend programme. Facilitating people to self-enrol their children under the programme, we have also introduced the app today. Using this app, families can enrol their children themselves at their doorstep without visiting any office”, said Dr. Sania Nishtar while speaking to media. In the next 3 years, Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif programme intends to bring 10 million deserving children into its fold from 160 districts of Pakistan.

To date, over 6.7 million children have already been enrolled. The purpose of Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif Program is twofold – assist the vulnerable households and reduce the number of out of school children. Currently, there are 18.7 million out-of-school children in Pakistan. According to the Ehsaas policy, Ehsaas Taleemi Wazaif gives higher amount of stipend to girls as compared to boys. Stipends are given from primary to the higher secondary level to children aged 4-22 years from families eligible in the Ehsaas ecosystem. The programme encourages parents to send their children, particularly girls to schools. All payments are linked to satisfactory school/college attendance of children.

“Our government has also introduced, Ehsaas graduation bonus for girls completing the 5th grade to address the issue of girls dropping out of school”, stated Dr. Sania. Today, Ehsaas is also hosting a panel discussion on, “Role of conditional cash transfers in improving Human Capital Development in Pakistan”.

The virtual event will bring together Dr. Christian Turner, British High Commissioner to Pakistan; Najy Behnhassine, Country Director, the World Bank; Yong Ye, Country Director, Asian Development Bank; Aida Girma – Country Representative, UNICEF; and Director General Ehsaas Conditional Cash Transfers, Naveed Akbar. This year’s International Day of Education is a platform to showcase the most important transformations that have to be nurtured to realize everyone’s fundamental right to education and build a more sustainable, inclusive and peaceful futures.

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