AIOU, PLAN Int’l to set up open schooling system

The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) will collaborate with PLAN International for setting up open schooling system in Pakistan at district levels to help the government for achieving millennium development goals by 2015.
A memorandum of understanding has already been signed between AIOU and Plan International on providing equal rights of opportunity for girls and young women. This was revealed during the inaugural ceremony of a 10-day master trainers’ workshop of Girls Power Project (GPP) held here on Monday.
Director, Bureau for University Extension and Special Programmes/Projects (BUESP), AIOU, Mir Mukhtiar Hussain Talpur, said this MoU provided main basis of their bilateral cooperation in facilitating the dropout students in their educational pursuit at middle and matric levels.
The GPP has been launched for dropout female students. Twenty-seven master trainers from different parts of the country are participating in the workshop.
Mukhtar Hussain Talpur said that BUESP would soon be named as ‘National Institute of Open Schooling and Lifelong Learning’ to project its objectives and status, as per vision of Vice Chancellor Prof Dr. Nazir Ahmed Sangi. It will have important role in the university’s image-building and strengthening its efforts for promoting literacy rate in the country.
The master trainers will be assigned the task to train thousands of the teachers to participate in the Middle -Matric education programme for dropout girls in a befitting manner.
According to the MoU, a five-year international programme ‘Girls Power Programme’ on increasing access and participation of young girls and women in primary and post-primary education will be implemented initially in two districts Chakwal and Vehari. There are two projects in the MoU one is the basic skills for life in Thatta and the other is Girls Power Project in Vehari and Chakwal.
AIOU will provide assistance in teacher training and curriculum development while Plan International will be responsible for all activities related to programme implementation and bringing the programme on ground.
Consultation on ‘Education for All’ today: Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) and Intermedia Pakistan will hold a consultation on “Education for All: the Role of Media” today (Tuesday).
The consultation aims at creating close coordination between development practitioners and journalists to facilitate improved reporting on education and advocate for the right to education for all. The media representatives will be updated on the situation of access to education in the country along with charting the pathways for creating effective linkages between activists and journalists.