'IDS helps improve education standard'

The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has evaluated its foundation-assisted programmes by independent consulting firm Innovative Development Strategies (IDS), Punjab Education Foundation Managing Director Dr Allah Baksh Malik told Business Recorder on Monday.
Malik said IDS Chairman, Dr Suhail Jehangir Malik in his report talked about evaluation, saying it was the systematic and objective assessment of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and impact of development interventions.
Malik said the report talked about the main objective of programmes was to improve access of children, particularly, girls from less affluent households, to decent quality education in geographical areas less endowed by public schools. Malik also said the basic objective of "the third party evaluation" was the assessment and an in-depth analysis of the overall impact and effectiveness of PEF-FAS programme.
He said the IDS evaluated the fairness and transparency of the programme processes, specifically, its schools selection process and distribution of funds.
He said the study revealed a comprehensive review of the overall programme architecture to assess its ability as a viable and sustainable model and also explored options of replication and scaling up.
He also said the study revealed the quantitative and qualitative assessment of experience and perceptions of all major stakeholders including, but not limited to, partner schools administration, students, teachers, parents, non-FAS private and public school administrations and government concerns.
Malik also said Punjab Education Foundation Chairman Shahid Hafeez Kardar stressed the importance of providing easy access to quality education to all children especially poor, vulnerable, and denoted. He stressed on the importance of outgoing monitoring and evaluation as a means further refining the programme and improving its impact on society.
He also said the third party evaluation confirmed the exceptionally high growth performance of the quality assurance of the program. The comparison confirmed randomly chosen students from partner schools performed well than students of other schools. The TPE covered 40 percent of the schools under the programme located in Bahawalpur, Chakwal, Khushab, Lahore, Bahawalnagar, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Lodhran.