Sindh government seeks NGOs' support for educating children: Saeed

Sindh Information, Archives and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani has sought the assistance of bona fide charitable organizations to provide education to children of every laborer in the province as the provincial government will soon adopt the concept of universalization of social security.

Sindh Information and Labour Minister stated this while addressing the concluding session of the Children Carnival and Inter-School Competition held at Arts Council on Saturday night to mark the silver jubilee of the foundation of the Green Crescent Trust (GCT).

The GCT had been managing a network of over 150 charitable schools in remote and rural parts of Sindh having enrolment of 29,000 students. Saeed Ghani said that the Sindh government needed support of organizations like the GCT, which could help the provincial authorities in meeting the colossal target of educating children of all the labourers in the province.

"We will bear all the expenses of any such mission, while organizations like yours will work with us to meet this target. We have no problem in working under such an arrangement," he said. "We will take you on board whenever this policy is finalized as we want support of organizations like yours," said the provincial minister while addressing the GCT officials.

He said the government was under obligation to lend full support to the private sector people who spent their time, money, and resources to provide education to children of underprivileged families as by making such efforts they were sharing the responsibilities of the state.

He assured fullest support to GCT in its drive to provide quality education to children of low-income groups and also to fight the issue of out-of-school-children. "We will provide more help than whatever support you want from us," said the provincial minister. He acknowledged that no country could make progress without providing education to its children.

In his address, GCT CEO Zahid Saeed urged the government to declare educational emergency in the country with the support of the provinces to deal with the alarming issues like out-of-school children.

He said that 4.2 million out-of-school children alone in Sindh was a serious challenge for the government. It needed to spend all the available resources and budget for the education sector in a transparent and efficient manner, he added. Citing an example of People's Republic of China Zahid Saeed said that per capita income of Pakistan would increase by five times if the government worked with dedication to improve educational standards and started enrolling the out-of-school children.

Zahid Saeed said that first school of the GCT had been established in a remote part of District West of Karachi with one teacher and 50 students. He told that at this point in time, after 25 years, the enrollment of schools being supervised by the GCT had increased to 29,000.

The CEO said that 1400 qualified teachers had been hired to educate these 29,000 students. Zahid Saeed said that the GCT had the aim to increase its enrollment of students to 100,000 in next five years. He suggested establishing a consortium of like-minded NGOs working in Sindh to spread the cause of education for underprivileged families.

Later, CEO of Green Crescent Trust (GCT) Zahid Saeed presents shield to Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani. Comissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shalwani, Vice-Admiral (retd) Arifullah Hussani, Arts Council President Muhammad Ahmed Shah, and others also spoke.-PR