Non-formal education sector: report underscores need for supplementing state's efforts

With over five million primary children now out-of-schools in the country and the formal public and private education sectors' inability to cater to all children, the potential of the non-formal education sector to supplement the state's efforts to provide decent early education at the local level needs to be explored.
The non-formal education sector, with very limited resources and low level of support to children at home, not only addresses the access issue for them but also hold its own when compared to education in public and low-cost private schools. The new findings by a research study titled "meeting the right to education commitment: engaging with non-formal basic education across Pakistan" authored by SAHE and IDEAS offer some startling facts.
With the support from the Ilm Ideas and employing the Annual Status of Education Report assessment instruments, the research jointly conducted by the Society for the Advancement of Education and the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives mentioned that 51 percent of non-formal basic education students are able to read a story in Urdu, Sindhi or Pushto.
But the research study showed that only 37 percent of students in public and 34 percent in private schools are able to do the same. The research also unveils that public and private school children generally perform slightly better in English tests and much better in those of mathematics as compared to their counterparts in non-formal basic education centres. In the wake of Pakistan's commitment under Article 25-A to educate 5-16 years of age boys and girls, the potential of the non-formal basic education to assist in the mammoth task of achieving the right-to-education can never be ignored.
The study advocates that the non-formal basic education sector is another avenue that has the potential to address the out-of-school children and giving of early education at a low cost ranging from Rs 200 to Rs 500 per child per month. "If low-cost private schools are deemed worthy of support on the basis of low per child cost, so should the non-formal basic education centres, with the focus being on numeracy and literacy or early childhood education," SAHE Executive Director Abbas Rashid said.
The report mentioned that there are about 28,000 centres being run by the public and private sectors that are catering to some one million students with a 60-percent-female-sstudent ratio. The non-formal education sector is also offering a flexible form of education to cater to the needs of many out-of-school children, but more centres need to function in the afternoon to help working children who can devote time to education only once they are free from work.
On the role of proximity, flexibility and a local female teacher, the study vividly identifies that students with teachers from the same community are more likely to have high proficiency students as compared to those from another community. Many parents believe they will never be sending their daughters to schools, if the centre is unavailable in their neighbourhood. "Having a school even half a mile away is not the same thing. A centre at the Mohalla level makes a difference," Rashid said.
The study further said the non-formal basic education can also become viable for early childhood education, because numerous children in pre-primary and early grades (such as Kachi, grade 1 and 2) in public schools are usually ignored and left largely to their own devices by teachers, whose attention is mainly focused on the higher grades.
"The well-supported non-formal basic education centres will not only give better care to students but also relieve pressure on public schools. The centres at the local level will also address the serious transport issue," report said. It also calls for providing regular training to non-formal basic education teachers since most centres are supposed to give teaching in multi-grade settings. Recommending greater coordination between the formal and non-formal education sectors to create more enabling environment for learners to mainstream them into the formal sector, the study urged a provincial level strategy for non-formal basic education including developing a detailed database of programmes, identifying reform support areas, allocating budget and developing a detailed action plan along with putting in place a provincial coordinating mechanism.
It also recommends standardisation among non-formal basic education programmes and different sectors to play a vital role in supplementing the formal sector. Equivalence standards at the national level will also help students' movement between the programmes and the formal system. A standard multi-grade non-formal basic education curriculum with guidelines for teacher training and sample teaching and learning material for use by these programmes is needed as well.