A non-profit organisation has increased its capacity to enrol out-of-school children in an underprivileged and remote neighbourhood of District West of Karachi where it has been running a total of 10 charitable schools.
Raees Muhammad Irshad, a nonagenarian retired civil servant and philanthropist who founded a school in Gharo among his other charitable works, inaugurated the extension wing of the charitable school in Ittehad Town run by the non-profit Green Crescent Trust (GCT). The school will now offer enrolment to 300 more students.
In his speech at the inaugural ceremony, Irshad praised the years-long determination shown by the GCT, its donors and supporters in conducting the drive to educate children of deprived parts of the province.
He said the destiny of the country could easily be transformed by providing quality school education to the millions of children belonging to deprived families.
He told the audience that the same method had been adopted by many regional countries to make progress by leaps and bounds.
He lamented that billions of rupees were spent in the country every year to run the government schooling system without proper checks and balances.
The philanthropist said teachers at government schools were not performing their duties diligently due to a sheer lack of accountability in the public education system.
He added that the drive to educate children from destitute families was like a Jihad and concerned philanthropists and donors should actively support such charitable campaigns.
GCT Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Zahid Saeed, who has recently been conferred Tamgha-e-Imtiaz by the government for his philanthropic activities, said that his non-profit had the determination to build more schooling facilities in Ittehad Town to resolve the issue of out-of-school children in the underprivileged area.
He urged the parents and elders of the area to take full advantage of the charitable schooling facilities by enrolling all the children in their locality.
He told the audience that the GCT had 166 charitable schools in impoverished areas with enrollment of over 31,700 students.
Mirza Farhan Baig, the GCT director of schools, said 10 charitable schools run by the organisation in Ittehad Town had a total enrolment of around 1,800 students from impoverished families.
He said that up to 50 per cent of students enrolled on GCT’s schools were girls while up to 98 per cent of their teaching staff were women showing that the charitable schooling drive had played an important role in promoting the cause of women’s empowerment in the area.
Published at The News on 11th September 2023