2019-09-06
Our team recently completed a successful visit to Lahore focusing on sharing our government school reform model as well as on the need to introduce Child Protection through Life Skills Based Education (LSBE) in Punjab's schools.
Zindagi Trust Founder Shehzad Roy called on Punjab Chief Minister UsmanBuzdar at his office on Monday and apprised him about the work of his organisation in the field of education. The CM was inspired to hear about the trust's work in reforming government schools. He shared his own goal of making district-level schools into centres of excellence along the lines of Zindagi Trust's model schools and asked for the cooperation of the trust in that regard.The Punjab Education Minister and Secretary Education were also present. We are excited about this upcoming endeavor to bring our model to schools in Punjab.
Our team, led by founder Shehzad Roy along with Head of Special Programs & Advocacy, Sana Kazmi, later held a meeting withMuradRaas, the Provincial Minister of Education for the Punjab. They shared the trust's model for school reform, involving interventions in infrastructure, governance, academic innovation and strong extra-curricular and co-curricular programs. The minister was impressed with the innovation in the trust's model as he learned about their success in their pilot projects at model schools in Sindh as well as in policy change through advocacy. He expressed his interest in bringing ideas from the trust's model into Punjab's schools and committed to visiting the trust's Karachi schools with his team to get better acquainted with the model. We look forward to his visit in the upcoming weeks.
A committee to address the issue of rampant child abuse in Punjab was formed by the Secretary Education after a consultation with Zindagi Trust on the way forward for schools to play their role in eradicating child abuse. The committee's first meeting was held earlier this week in Lahore, chaired by the Secretary Education Muhammad Mahmood himself. Demonstrating his leadership, the Secretary set the tone for the meeting by expressing the School Education Department's commitment to protecting the children of the province from the menace of abuse by finding a way to use education as a tool for prevention and protection.
Participants of the meeting included Punjab Curriculum & Textbook Board (PCTB) Chairman TahirMehmood, Director Monitoring of School Education Department Rana Abdul Qayyum, Advisors to the Minister SED RazaHamdani and RazaGardezi. It was also heartening to see representatives from civil society organisationscoming together to help Pakistan's biggest province move forward on this issue - Aisha Ijaz from Aahung, DrManizehBano from Sahil, and QaziEhsan from ITA were present along with singer and activist Shehzad Roy and Sana Kazmi from Zindagi Trust.The CSOs shared their positive experience of child abuse awareness sessions for students, teachers and parents.
There was a healthy discussion on the roadmap to integrating LSBE into the curriculum as well as the practical roadblocks that may be encountered along the way. The civil society organisationswere drafted into a Technical Advisory Committee along with the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board as well as the School Education Department. This committee will study existing Punjab textbooks, existing LSBE content by CSOsas well the SLOs from the curriculum to find overlaps where relevant content can be integrated to introduce Child Protection into Punjab's textbooks and classroom instruction.
