Schools: Educating underserved girls in Pakistan

The pandemic has wreaking havoc on the lives of young children, students, and youth. and has impacted education in unprecedented ways. In Pakistan, since school closures in March 13, 2020, students had been studying from home, in a context of huge uncertainty and with families and schools having to navigate across options of hybrid and remote learning, or no schooling at all. Schools had been reopening for a few weeks but then as soon as number of cases rise, they had to be closed following government directives. The unique nature of the pandemic places a burden on the parents as first-line responders for children’s survival, care and learning.

We are now working to assess learning losses during remote instruction. Our teachers who have had to rapidly adapt, be creative, and shift roles, have been visiting children’s homes bringing them weekly lessons, distributing books and resource packs, hence helping them with their learning by providing remedial education and socio-emotional support to help them catch-up and ensure school retention, since there is an increasing risk of school dropouts as a result of contracting family incomes. Teachers play a major role as they set up meetings with parents and community members.

For older children they had been managing flexible schemes they have had small groups of 4-6 students visit them in their homes in rotation. It is a complex balance of managing health risks with the huge learning losses.

Now, with the reopening of schools, we are running two shifts to ensure safety and social distancing. The junior classes attend the morning session and Grade 5 and above come in the afternoon. These children are fighting for their dreams and working hard to achieve them. Please help us create a better life for them through education.