Special Assistant to the Prime Minister MNA Shahnaz Wazir Ali Thursday said that federal government has transferred large funds to the provinces than ever before so that they could develop their own infrastructures.
Addressing the National School Feeding Review 2011 of World Food Programme (WFP), she said that she has always remained committed and deeply active in school feeding sessions across the country, adding that it is a great deal to ensure children to come to school, as it has deep impact on socio-economic.
She said WFP has recognised the critical situation of education in Pakistan and has come forth to assist in building education capacity of the country. She said it should not only participate in the disaster of floods and earthquake but also the insecurity aspects of Pakistan.
She said that wheat crops and country import and export needs are well taken into account by the WFP, UNESCO and UNICEF. She said that devolution has no negative impact on the education system. Provinces are now on driving seats and they can decide as how to enhance the literacy rate in their respective provinces, she said, adding in Pakistan, education department is not structured enough to integrate all educational, nutritional and health related indicators together.
She said government has provided Rs 400 billion to the provinces to design and implement good education infrastructure. It was discussed in yesterdays meeting with UNESCO and other counterparts that there would be free compulsory and quality education from grade 1-5 especially in KPK. Now, it is the time to provide citizen advocacy to the provinces so that they can build the required and exceptional infrastructure of education in the country. Citizens have to play a crucial role with enormous advocacy programmes to improve the education sector of the country, she informed. Mohammad Ayub of Planning Commission said that national nutritional survey and other relevant data of six months period shows that we are facing nutritional problems with a tremendous increase with each passing day.
Fayaz of Ministry of Education CADD said that WFP has helped us a lot in the activity of Atlas and people of CADD are still using it. Federal Ministries including education is now working in this direction. About impact on School Feeding Programme, he said it has been very effective as food supplements, oil and HEBs are very productive in bringing nutritional value for the children.
Dr Kozue Kay Nagata, Unesco's representative to Pakistan said that rise in oil and food prices have negative impact on the communities. The high demand on UN economies has negative impact on poor population who cannot prioritise their needs. In 18th amendment, we have to work for all the children including poor, government and private etc.
"Our beneficiary must be most disadvantaged and challenging, suffering from nutrition. Government of Pakistan has made a new programme of benefits for disabled today. We have to give incentives and look at the demand side so that supply of education and nutrition should equally be provided", he said, adding to reach most disadvantaged groups UNICEF, UNESCO and Government of Pakistan are working together.
Fazal Manan, FATA Directorate for Education said that literacy rate of FATA is only 17%; lowest across the country. We need to do a lot to increase the literacy rate in this part of the country. He said they are facing three issues ie, access, quality and equity. He added the fourth could be the Governance. He said WFP is providing support to increase the enrolment but how to improve the quality of education? This question needs an answer.
"We have to link the quality of education with the enrolment programme", he said. He said social, cultural and moral values written in the education policy of 2009 says free and compulsory meaningful secondary education should be implemented.
He said due to worse law and order situation in FATA, agencies hesitate to take humanitarian part in eradication of poverty. He said only increase in enrolment is not the only solution as schools become crowded and we need more rooms and facilities to accommodate them.
Under one UN Programme, develop a system where UNICEF, UNESCO and WFP expand co-ordination and link with each other without any separate components, he said. He informed 600,000 students, 21000 teachers are working in FATA while most of the buildings are partially or fully damaged so they also need to build these education facilities. He said there is a plan to establish a university in FATA and each tribal agency will have 1 cadet college.
He said FATA depends on KPK Government regarding budget allocation. WFP has started humanitarian programmes in KPK since 1994 and now the programmes are expanding to the seven districts of KPK, he said. Wolfgang Herbinger, WFP representative said that school feeding is a linchpin between nutrition and education. "We have to benefit students with nutritional value and education with several incentives", he said.
He said the situation in Pakistan is worse in this regard as there is 1/3rd drop out in schools and nutritional deficiency as micronutrient is not even satisfactory. For the past three years, the situation in Pakistan has been deteriorating and the environment is difficult. No doubt, he said there are new opportunities for the humanitarian actors as Provinces who always take lead, needs to be partnered with. He said this is the time to set our priorities as we have just come out of the biggest flood in the history of Pakistan.
He said it is an opportunity for us, now to assist these schools and provide required facilities. Another crucial aspect is the safety of schools, which is a part of the global campaign. He further said it is important to inform teachers that they should create awareness among students about what they should do in the case of any disaster.
He said WFPs DRM is serving the purpose as it is expanding geographically to create the awareness of disaster risk management that should be taken care of by everyone in a society. Now, we have education atlas that visualises the progress and whole information about WFPs school feeding programme, he said, adding it is a web-based version that can be accessed by anyone who needs information on education developmental programme of WFP.