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Manager   •   almost 10 years ago

Education - A

Pakistan faces an "education emergency," where there is a high proportion of school-aged children who are out-of-school. What innovative solution can you propose to attract students (and their parents) to enroll in schools?

  • 6 comments

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Educate not only children, educate parents too. Adult education is one of the solutions.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Single proposed solution to A, B and C

    1. Get in contact with some Chinese company to provide cheapest possible android mobile phone in bulk with SIM and WiFi disabled/not present but with a relatively large screen and an SD card slot.

    2. Load the phone's SD card with approved Educational Content (Video/Audio/Text, Animations,exercises etc. for Science/Urdu/English/ Whatever, but exactly according to the respective boards say up to fifth grade or class-wise depending on size of SD card and Content.

    3. Provide this mobile free of cost to out of school children with registration.

    4. Ask them to study at home, at work place or on the street and take help from wherever possible and pass the exam say after three or four months conducted by the board for 5th grade to receive a PRIZE as well as free onward school education.

    The gadget, if resources permit, can be provided to other school going children as well. If laptops can be given to college and university students then why not such a gadget to school children.
    Alternatively, the SD card can be distributed to Stationary Shops which can be used by all students in their own mobile phones.
    Parents too can be educated along with children - only the content would need to be that of Adult Education.

    Lutfullah Kakakhel

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Please Note:

    - Most of the statistics on schools/school children may not be reliable.

    - A number of children are intentionally not sent to school by parents because they are the sole earning members in the family.

    - The idea of bringing these children to formal school will therefore hardly work

    - Home schooling or non-formal education through technology may help

    Lutfullah Kakakhel

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    I think of OOSC as a symptom of a problem rather than the problem itself. They could be out of school for any number of reasons and one would have to find them first to figure out why they're not in school. In one of my researches for ADB we found that a number of households in KP, ICT, and Punjab weren't sending their kids to school because their kids were secondary bread earners behind the mothers, in the absence of their fathers who didn't do anything.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Yes, our problem of education cannot be isolated from our socio economic status and addressed as a problem in itself. We can only approach to a solution as near as possible.
    If it is publicly known that no harm will be caused to their existing living structure then i guess parents will themselves bring their children to receive a free mobile phone or something else and hence get registered.
    I think a lot of time has been wasted in collecting only information and statistics with no follow up solutions. Launching another project, even if it is IT based, to collect information about out of school children will produce just another report to capture dust. Education must be taken to the doorstep or pocket in use case of a mobile device. Completely illiterate people made their ATM cards to draw Benazir Income Support Money. They line up and then wait for a person to operate the machine for them but they do remember their code very well. Something similar could be offered for education. An Education Support ATM for a registered Child enrolled in school to draw a small stipend per month. NADRA could be involved to provide details of registered children or an ATM to parent for a child could be given on the condition to register the child first with NADRA and enroll him her in a school. In fact it can be added to the same BISP program. When there is a will there is a way. Unfortunately education has always remained a low priority.


  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    You have to incentivize the enrollment, and government bears partial expense of their livelihood. Its more of a political debate rather than a technology challenge.

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