Senior Minister for Education Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that the government of Sindh is going to initiate a scheme to distribute Rs 950 million amongst 3,50,000 girls this year through three different ways in order to enhance girls’ enrolment in schools.
He announced this in a press conference held at the office of a cell phone company on Wednesday. He said the scheme would be start from 29th of January in which the schoolgirls belonging to rural areas from class VI to X would receive Rs 3,500 while those belonging to urban areas would get Rs 2,500. He said the number of beneficiaries who belonged to rural areas was 75,000 while 2,75,000 girls belonged to urban areas.
Khuhro announced the method of receiving the payment and said that parents or guardians of girls enrolled in government schools could withdraw their stipend without paying any fee. He said this year the government of Sindh was distributing stipend among girls through three different ways – SMS for those who have mobile numbers. Those who have ATM cards can withdraw from their last year’s given ATM card with the same pin code and those who don’t have ATM card and SMS will be given pin code mailer at their schools through allocating teams, he added.
He hoped that the incentive would increase enrollment of girls so that they could continue their education. He said last year about 3,44,160 girl students received their stipend.
Talking about the transparency in distributing cash among the girls, he said this time they had taken all necessary steps to ensure zero corruption in this regard.
The minister said that girls’ stipend was an incentive programme launched by the Sindh government in 2006 to encourage girls to stay in schools. The purpose of the stipend is to make sure that girls move on to middle and secondary school instead of dropping out after completing primary schooling, he commented.
Replying to a question regarding teachers’ attendance, Khuhro said that presence of 1,90,000 teachers had already been verified under the biometric system. School specific budget was also issued in which the department would provide furniture, boundary walls and other facilities to the schools, he added. He said they were trying their best to protect schools from terrorism activities.
