Punjab Education Foundation

Punjab Education Foundation
Agency overview
Formed 1991 (1991)
Jurisdiction Punjab, Pakistan
Agency executive
  • Tariq Mahmood, Chief Executive Officer/ MD
Website Punjab Education Foundation

The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) is a non-profit government body working under the School Education Department of the Government of Punjab, Pakistan. It was established in 1991 to promote and encourage education in private institutes in Punjab. The Foundation was restructured in 2004 to keep pace with the changing requirements of the education sector in Punjab. [1] Now, the vision of the Foundation is: “To promote quality education through Public Private Partnership, encourage and support the efforts of private sector through technical and financial assistance, innovate and develop new instruments to champion wider educational opportunities at affordable cost to the poor.” [2] Its head office is in Lahore. Currently, as much as more than two million most deserving male and female students are enrolled in PEF partner schools across the Punjab. Girls ratio in the partner schools is 45 percent.

Functions

Punjab Education Foundation is an autonomous, statutory body of the Punjab Government which works under the auspicious guidance of its 15-member board of directors (BOD) which is headed by the Chairman selected among the private members.(www.pef.edu.pk) The Foundation has taken many innovative interventions for promotion of affordable quality school education for the less-privileged and disenfranchised sections of the society and has introduced new cost-effective, economical and affordable models through Public Private Partnership (PPP). These initiatives have been widely appreciated and recognized at national and international level by now. [3] The following initiatives are enabling the poorest of the poor and less-advantaged sections of the society by providing wider quality educational opportunities at affordable cost.

1. Foundation Assisted School (FAS): Foundation Assisted School (FAS) is the flagship program of the Punjab Education Foundation. It encourages and promotes free access to quality education through Public Private Partnership. The financial assistance @ rate Rs.550/- for primary level, Rs. 650 for elementary classes, Rs.700/- for secondary arts classes and Rs. 800/- for secondary science classes, on per child enrolment is provided to partner schools every month. Partner schools cannot charge any fee in whatsoever form, including, but not restricted to, fines, recreation, stationery, class/tours, admission charges, registration fees, etc. from the students studying in the school.

This initiative targets private sector institutions working in rural as well as in urban and peri-urban slums of the province. After thorough inspection of physical infrastructure against criteria set out by the Punjab Education Foundation, an assessment test (pre quality assurance test) is conducted to determine the quality of education being imparted in the school before partnership is awarded with the PEF. The minimum strength of enrolment should not be less than 45 and 55 students for elementary and secondary schools respectively. Now, the FAS partner schools are divided into different categories keeping in view their space and number of students.

Current number of FAS partner schools is more than 3000 (including 3 higher secondary schools) while the number of beneficiaries has risen to more than 14 lakh. Quality Assurance Test (QAT) results show improvement in quality of education in FAS partner schools. Financial assistance is discontinued in case of partner school fails consecutively in two Quality Assurance Tests (QATs).

At present, PEF-FAS program is working in all the 36 districts of the Punjab. Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) may carry out class-wise random inspections of the partner school to check/verify the veracity of the reported enrolment, improvements made in the infrastructure and standard of cleanliness & hygiene at any time without notice during working hours of the partner school. Students and teachers of the school being supported under the PEF-FAS program may also be interviewed and must be directly accessible to the representatives of the Punjab Education Foundation without any representative of the school administration being present during the conduct of this exercise. 2. Continuous Professional Development Program (CPDP): For the first time in the history of Pakistan, teachers of the low-cost private education institutions have been provided opportunities for their continuous professional development through Cluster Based Trainings aimed at improving the pedagogical skills and secure understanding of the subject matter. To ensure quality education, quality mentoring is the quintessential pre-requisite. The program is aimed at impacting the learning outcomes of the students studying in these low-cost educational institutions through quality mentoring. The contents and contours of the program are focused to achieve the target of quality education through synergy and synchronization, sharing resources, knowledge, vision, wisdom, perceptions and accumulated expertise in Public Private Partnership. The program is enhancing the didactic resource base of the teachers in pedagogy, andragogy, secure and superior understanding of the core content knowledge. There is irrefutable empirical evidence of positive and definite impact on the learning outcomes of the students - the ultimate beneficiaries of the intervention. Continuous Professional Development Program-Cluster Based Trainings:

CPDP—School Leadership Development Programme:

CPDP- Secondary level Mentoring

Subject Based Support Program (SBSP)

3. Education Voucher Scheme (EVS): To ensure socio-economic justice and to avoid educational apartheid in the society at grassroots, the poorest of the poor and disenfranchised sections of the society must get equal opportunity and access to quality education enabling the future generations to get out of the vicious circle of poverty and deprivation. There is no doubt that education is a strong mechanism that can be used to develop the human capital resources of the less-privileged in urban and rural slums. In collaboration with Columbia University, USA, the PEF Board of Directors designed Education Voucher Scheme (EVS) for the slums/katchi abadies in the province of Punjab. A pilot project was started in the urban slums of Sukh Nehar, Lahore. Initially, the age cohort for the EVS candidate children was 5–13 years and during the 34th BOD meeting on 20 October 2007 the age cohort was approved as between the ages of 4 and 17. EVS started its Pilot Project in the last quarter of 2006 from the area of Sukh Nehar, Lahore. During the first phase in October 2006, 11 Schools, 527 households and 1053 students were facilitated through this scheme. In a short span of time, 13 expansion phases have been launched while the number of beneficiary students in 36 districts of the Punjab has reached to more than two lakh in 2014. The voucher is redeemable against payment of fee in the private educational institutions. EVS Office has devised standard procedures of its operations. All steps right from the selection of area for launching the scheme to voucher distribution and from selection of partner schools to quality assurance in the partner schools are well defined. The inception of EVS has many positive impacts. These impacts can be seen not only in the schools but in the local areas as well. There has been an increase in enrolment of students, regularity of attendance of students in the schools. Better students’ performance and improvement of salary structure of teachers in partner schools on one hand. On the other hand, reduction in educational gaps between poor and rich, decrease in drop out rate are also visible in the areas where EVS has been launched. New School Program (NSP): The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has arranged free school education of 86,488 deserving male and female students under its New School Program (NSP) in different districts of the province. This initiative has been launched in collaboration with 518 private partner schools in these districts so that the deserving students could improve their lives through gratis education. NSP was launched in 5 selected districts of Punjab namely, Chiniot, Lodhran, Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur on 13 March 2008. Besides provision of monthly fee, students enrolled in the NSP partner schools are also provided with free text books. PEF has thus relieved the partner school students of such expenses so that they could study without being burdened. It is important to note that NSP has been found useful in eradicating illiteracy in backward areas where no other governmental or private schooling system is available to the locals and the poor parents are reluctant to send their children especially the girls to afar schools for want of resources. NSP is designed to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children out of school and to empower them to take their talents to the world around. PEF fosters an atmosphere of mutual respect among students and staff, enhancing the students’ self-esteem and lead them to optimally utilize their potential. PEF sees its students succeeding-in schools and in life through better access, equity and quality education in Public Private Partnership.

4-Public School Support Program (PSSP):

The Punjab Education Foundation has also launched Public School Support Program (PSSP) to provide free, quality education to the students through its private partners. Under this program, low-performing public sector schools will be run through private partners to provide good quality education to the students near to their doorsteps. PSSP will be strictly run on non-commercial, non-profit basis to provide best quality education to the students. It is expected that this program will have multiple positive effects on the school education sector; helping in improving the enrolment ratio in these schools as well as improving the quality of education for the students who mostly belong to low-income families. No fee would be charged from the students in the schools to be run through the PSSP. Only one thousand schools, out of the 53 thousand public sector schools, are managed by the Punjab Education Foundation in the first phase through its private partners, while the teachers of these schools are relocated near to their homes/other schools. After the success of the first phase, second phase of PSSP is also launched and scrutiny of application is underway. PSSP is aimed to provide good atmosphere so that the students could fully benefit, besides helping the out of school and drop out children to study without being burdened.

Members

Tariq Mahmood (Managing Director)

See also

References

  1. ↑ About PEF
  2. ↑ On Radio Pakistan
  3. ↑ BOP gives 250 million to PEF
  4. ↑ "Chairman Punjab Education Foundation visit Agha Khan University | Sindh Study". sindhstudy.com. Retrieved 2014-07-22.

www.punjabeducationfoundation.blogspot.com

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