Non-formal education is the only method through which out-of-school children can receive education. Sindh Education minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said this on 23-July-2025 as he addressed as the chief guest a ceremony for handing over gadgets to 500 non-formal education centres established across the province.
The project was accomplished by the School education department with the collaboration of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Shah stated that the Sindh government had launched a serious initiative to address the issue of out-of-school children in the province. He emphasised that this gap could not be filled through conventional education methods alone and non-formal education was the only effective way to help as many out-of-school children as possible receive an education.
He noted that around 1.6 million children were born in Sindh every year, with only 800,000 to 1 million enrolled in public and private schools, while, based on available resources, the government could only educate 200,000 to 300,000 children through traditional measures. Acknowledging these realities, he stressed the need for exploring alternative approaches.
The education minister said that providing digital facilities to non-formal centres would help modernise them and enable continuous contact with centres for online teacher training. He also announced that under the expansion of non-formal education initiatives, 3,000 centres would be established across Sindh, helping 100,000 children complete their education swiftly outside of the conventional system.
School Education Secretary Zahid Ali Abbasi stated in his address that the gadgets would facilitate monitoring of non-formal education centres and allow direct observation of their performance, including student attendance and learning progress.
JICA Deputy Chief Adviser Abid Gul mentioned that the gadgets would make it easier to provide periodic training to teachers in order to keep them updated with modern teaching methods.
Sindh Literacy and Non-Formal Education (LNFE) Director Abdul Jabbar Mari shared that in the first phase of the non-formal education initiative in the province, 500 centres had been established in Jacobabad, Kashmore, Mirpurkhas, Tharparkar and Umerkot, targeting 15,000 children for education. Currently, 16,349 students were enrolled in these centres, with 8,598 being girls, which was a higher number than boys.
He highlighted that these centres had been set up in areas with the lowest literacy rates, with priority given to underprivileged communities, providing education opportunities to children aged 9 to 16 years. He added that with the help of digital gadgets, a managerial information system would be established to record the attendance of teachers and students. At the end of the ceremony, the education minister distributed tablets among facilitators of the non-formal centres and encouraged them for their efforts.
Published in News Daily on 24 July 2025.