Education voucher scheme in KP

Shaukat Hayat Buneri

Iqra Farogh –e- Taleem education voucher scheme (EVS) is a scheme designed by ESEF to increase the access of out of school children (OOSC) to education. Un-der this scheme out of sc-hool children between the ages of 5-16 will be enro-lled in private schools, free of cost. The vouchers are be given in those areas wh-ere government schools ar-e away from the access of the children of the targeted areas. The vouchers pr-ovide for the tuition fee, u-niform and text books of the students.

In addition to EVS , the new school initiative( NSI) is also the KP government latest education initiative being implemented by the Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation (ESEF). It provides incentives to school owners to open middle level private school in selected village across the province.

The purpose of the initiative is also to enroll out of school children (OOSC) between the age of 11 to 16 with priority being given to children that have completed primary education.

This intuitive or program will be implemented in those areas where there is no government middle/high and private school at all or where these government and private schools are located at distances of more than 0.5 KM in hilly area or 0.75 KM in case of plain areas. The NSI will be implemented by the ESEF with collaboration of bureau of statistics (BOS) in all the 25 districts of KP.

Prior to the ongoing drive, the Education Voucher scheme (EVS )was implemented from June 2015 in six districts of KP , namely Peshawar, Mardan, Mansehra, Swat, Kohat and DIK as a pilot project and reportedly sixty thousands (60000) vouchers were distributed among the children who were admitted in the selected private schools. So keeping in view the significance and utility of the program, the program has been now extended to the entire districts and regions of KP with the target to distribute further 75000 vouchers among the parents of out of schools children.

It is pertinent to note here that both the aforementioned schemes will be implemented in the entire 7 districts of Malakand division as well. In this regard all preparations have been finalized al-most and training of the district staff completed at Min-gora, Swat the other day.

It is expected that the survey of the out of school children will start within few days in all the targeted villages and UCs of all the districts of the Province.

We hope that the area people especially the parents and guardians of the out of school children will avail the opportunity to admit their school going children in the private school selected by the survey teams for this program. This is certainly a good opportunity to increase the enrollment ratio especially in the backward areas of the province.

The relevant quarters in education department are also requested to extend their full cooperation to the ESEF and BOS staff in this regard so that the aims and objectives of the program may be achieved in practice please.