Minister of State and BISP Chairperson Marvi Memon on Sunday said that the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) had enrolled 1.3 million under-privileged children in primary schools and targeted to enroll 1.6 million by June 2017.
She was launching Waseela-e-Taleem (WeT) school enrollment drive nationwide which started from Rawalpindi, according to a press release issued here.
This is the second phase of enrollment drive and BISP aims to cement the success of WeT during this phase. Launched in October 2012 in five districts, WeT is currently operational in 32 districts and will be extended to 50 districts by the end of June 2018.
During the launch, the BISP chairperson examined all of three stages involved in the registration camp. First of all, screening of eligible children of beneficiaries is carried out.
After that, awareness session on the importance of education and attendance compliance for getting benefit from BISP is conducted. Lastly, enrollment process of children is completed. The BISP chairperson, on the occasion, said such registration camps would be set up in all 32 WeT districts across Pakistan and that phase would continue till all of five to 12 years beneficiary children were enrolled in primary schools.
She instructed the WeT team to complete the enrollment process in all the districts efficiently within minimum time. Marvi added that the WeT initiative was part of long term graduation strategy of BISP that aimed to develop human capital so that its beneficiaries might exit out of poverty in future.
The BISP chairperson, during the visit, interacted with the children and teachers, and inspected the facilities in the school. She said the BISP had registered positive and significant impact on primary school enrollment. According to BISP third impact evaluation report, school attendance deprivation has been reduced from 56pc in 2013 to 49pc in 2016 due to BISP.
WeT resulted in increase in enrollment of children between ages of 5-12 by 10pc points that is higher than the international average.
Under WeT initiative, BISP enrolls 5-12 years old children of its beneficiary families into primary schools. The beneficiary families receive Rs 750 per quarter per child with the condition of 70pc attendance compliance other than unconditional cash transfer (UCT) of Rs 4834 per quarter.
Under this initiative, BISP has carried out supply capacity assessment of 55,000 public and private schools and constituted 50,000 BISP beneficiary committees (BBCs) with the objective to create social mobilization amongst poorest of the poor.
