The education process will be designed to assist young people in their physical, social, emotional and moral development because 44 million are adolescent youths in Pakistan.
Yahya Waliullah, Secretary Planning and Development stated this at inaugural session of two days "Life Skills Based Education Programme: National Learning Forum: Uniting for Change" which was organised by World Population Foundation (WPF) at local Hotel here on Monday.
Yasmeen Qazi, Senior Country Advisor, Packard and Lucile Foundation, Mashhood Rizvi, Director, British Council, Sindh and Balochistan, Qadeer Baig, Country Representative, WPF, Pakistan and others were present on the occasion.
Yahya said that although several other civil society organisations and United Nations' agencies were also working for the reproductive health and education of adolescents in Pakistan, joint efforts between them could play a vital part towards more betterment in this regard.
He appreciated that the organisations were constantly developing new tools, resources outreaching the new strategies to work on issues of life skills therefore, they learnt from one another's experiences and develop strategies that could bring in a national impact.
This will also help in strengthening the existing resistance to meet some of the growing needs of the vast and diverse youth population of Pakistan, he said.
Mashhood said that British Council wanted to work for youth and urged to uproot competitive environment, which create a negative impact on a welfare work.
He emphasised joint efforts between Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to spread sexuality education among masses across the country.
He said that the world was becoming a global village therefore, it was easy to convey messages electronically and observed that Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Frequency Modulation (FM) radio could be more helpful to communicate with a common man.
Yasmeen said that people of Balochistan and NWFP were desired to get education on these serious issues because they had no platform but they never asked and still silent due to cultural restrictions.
She said that due to international commitments towards institutionalisation of Life Skills-Based Education (LSBE), the signatories of these international agreements had also ensured the existence of such programs as to promote LSBE on national level therefore, National Youth policy had been drafted in 2007 in Pakistan.
Sexual Reproductive health is not included in drafted policy, she apprised and added that public sector should be involved in every forum for effective convincing process for youth.
Qadeer said that WPF had organised a National Learning Forum with all major stakeholders of the LSBE sector in Pakistan to share their experiences and learning of working with young people in Pakistan.
He said that LSBE was a result of collaborative efforts of WPF with its partner organisations included Aahung, Amal, PAVHNA, Rozan, Azad Foundation, Nai Zindagi, Unicef Islamabad and Karachi, UNFPA, Institute for Educational Development-Aga Khan University (IED-AKU) and Aga Khan Education Support Programme (AKESP), Health and Nutrition Development Society (Hands), Participatory Integrated Development Society (PIDS), Pakistan Village Development Programme (PVDP), Community Development Services (CDS), All Pakistan Women Association (Apwa).
He apprised that WPF was launched LSBE Portal, which would provide complete online information to adolescents. It has designed its future strategy for LSBE, with the aim to make LSBE as a part of the National curriculum, which will be helpful for the extension of LSBE with various Government Ministries.
WPF looks forward for the co-operation of all the stakeholders in future for LSBE, which will play a vital role in the lives of the youth in Pakistan. This segment is more than 60 percent of whole population therefore, the enhancement of knowledge is extremely important for the social, political and economic development besides facilitating them for the stability of the country, he concluded.
It may be pointed out that LSBE was directed to provide young people with skills, knowledge and attitudes to help them for making decisions, manage their emotions, communicate effectively and practice positive and health-seeking behaviour.
The programme is being carried out in five districts (Hala, Karachi, Peshawar, Multan and Pishin) of Pakistan and focuses on building skills of youth in developing positive and healthy choices in their lives.
It is implemented through partners in 160 public and private schools in the above mentioned districts with support of 300 trained volunteer teachers with almost 24, 000 young girls and boys.