Aga Khan Education Service, Pakistan (AKESP) Activities

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kmaherali
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Aga Khan Education Service, Pakistan (AKESP) Activities

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Computer training centre set up in Denin
By zaralamkhan
By Zahiruddin

CHITRAL: Residents of Daneen and Koh union councils have lauded Aga Khan Education Service, Pakistan (AKESP) and European Union for establishing a computer literacy centre at Kuju, some 25 kilometres from here on Booni road. In a ceremony held here on Saturday for the inauguration of the community learning and resource centre (CLRC), general manager of AKESP Zuhran Shah said that the centre was constructed and equipped with computer and other paraphernalia at a cost of Rs4.5 million which was funded by the EU. Mr Shah said that the CLRC was the fourth one in the district to provide the youth and students of the remote areas with access to training in information technology. He added that other three CLRCs had been set up in Garam Chashma, Morder and Mastuj areas. He said that the CLRCs were managed by the local communities for which endowment funds had been provided by the AKESP. He said that the teachers of information technology classes would be paid through the income accrued from the endowment fund and the local resources generated by a committee. He said that nominal fee would be charged from the learners and the poor students would be exempted, adding the CLRC would also be a community centre where functions would be held in its spacious auditorium equipped with required facilities. He said that the AKESP had also spent a hefty amount of Rs20 million Euros on female education in the district since 1995. Field manager of AKESP Shakir Ahmed and nazim of Daneen union council Advocate Said Jalal highlighted the importance of computer literacy and information technology. Speaking on the occasion, tehsil nazim Chitral Sartaj Ahmed Khan said that without computer literacy, the modern education was quite meaningless and the establishment of CLRC was the great contribution of AKESP for the people of this backward area. He stressed on the committee to ensure discipline in the centre and spare a good deal of time for the females. On the demand of the committee, the tehsil nazim announced to provide electricity to the centre which was presently being electrified by a diesel generator. He also assured the community of all out cooperation from the tehsil municipal administration to provide maximum facilities to the learners in the centre. District president of PPP-Sherpao Advocate Abdul Wali Khan, who presided over the ceremony, stressed on the people to derive maximum benefit from the centre. He announced five scholarships for the secondary class students of the area to help them carry on their studies.–Dawn

http://voiceofchitral.wordpress.com/200 ... -in-denin/
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'An educational tour' -letter

The Aga khan Higher Secondary School Chitral is the first ever institution symbolizing merit and quality in education. The core values of the institution are respect,

fairness, integrity, rigour, humility, passion, honesty and creativity. The institution aims to produce life long learners fully acquainted with modern sciences and technology. Islamic morality and ideals of life remain the moving spirit and inspiration for the young learners. Here knowledge and learning is the way of life.

Being the pioneer in Chitral context, recently the faculty arranged an exposure tour to Northern Pakistan where the Aga Khan Higher Secondary Schools are well established and organized. The schools in northern areas have produced very brilliant and competent students who have made to the best institutions in Pakistan and around the world.

It was a successful tour in all sense. We received a delighted welcome there. As we were in a highly inquisitive mood about the institutions and the way they work there, we got the fullest cooperation and support which I think, we rightly expected from them. It goes without saying that the AKDN institutions in northern Pakistan are in full swing to implement and realize the pluralistic and meritocratic vision of their benevolent founder, prince Karim Aga Khan.

It was wonderful to observe that the whole system is running there as one unit with the same resilience and vision, worthy to emulate. Inside the institutions I saw life enriched with all colors where academic brilliance is not the only matter rather an all-round personality development, social skills, ethics and discipline matter most.

Gilgit and Chitral is the land of world’s mightiest peaks and Shundur being the roof of the world have shot to fame attracting nature lovers from around the world. Chitral has very old and strong bonds of culture, religion and traditions with the people of northern areas.

In the tour we also got an opportunity to study life in its simplicity but in perfect sophistication. It was most vivid in Hunza valley where people are hard working, very close and friendly with nature. I came to know that female literacy rate is hundred percent in Hunza valley and girls outshine boys in their annul exams. It was equaly a great source of delight and joy for me to see the young girls and boys holding farming instruments such as home made basket (waishko in khoware) rope and sickle on their way to the fields. As compared to Hunza life has become more mechanized and artificial in Chitral. We are very fast leaving behind the customs and ways of our forefathers which I think were the very source of enrichment of our culture and would add happiness to daily life. Education is all about the preservation of culture and traditions. Havoc is wreaked with our serene culture in the guise of modernism.

Education is the major indicator of a nation’s civlity, progress and prosperity. We have to go a long way to achieve our goals. We are determined and committed to the cause of education and have no choice but to wage jihad in education sector to safely steer our nation from unprecedented crisis which we are going through in the current phase of our national life. We are in this world for a brief moment in time; we must give our best to the world for the cause of humanity.

Fda ul karim,

Aga Khan Higher Secondary school, Chitral.

10 Jul 09.

http://www.chitralnews.com/LT249.htm
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Aga Khan School, Hafizabad TV Promo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyRXDzhhWSc
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Agha Khan sets up ten schools for Attaabad victims

ISLAMABAD, May 25 (APP): Agha Khan Education Programme has set up ten schools in relief camp for providing education to children of affectees of Attaabad Lake in Hunza. According to a private news channel report, these schools have been set up in thirty-one relief camps in Alit and Baltat areas, where qualified teachers are teaching the children.

Manager Agha Khan Education Programme Salman Ali told that his organization is providing technical and financial assistance for education of children.

He added that the organization has also announced scholarships for students of Upper Hunza’s Gojal area.

http://ftp.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?opt ... 1&Itemid=1

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Ya Ali Madad - The following is interesting and especially the success of TCF within 15 years of setting up, to have over 700 NEW schools and to become the leading Not for Profit education organisation in Pakistan.


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The U.S. Should Maintain Aid to Pakistan, Especially in Education
Rebecca Winthrop, Director, Center for Universal Education

Anda Adams, Associate Director , Global Economy and Development, Center for Universal Education

The Brookings Institution

May 12, 2011 – In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, a great deal of the debate on Capitol Hill has focused on the efficacy of U.S. aid to Pakistan. Against a background of tight budgets and a broader debate on U.S. foreign aid, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have voiced varying views. Some have been adamant about freezing and even eliminating aid to Pakistan, while others are staunch in their belief in maintaining support to the country at this critical point in time.

Congressman Ted Poe has sponsored legislation“to prohibit assistance to Pakistan” while Speaker of the House John Boehner asserted that “it’s not a time to back away from Pakistan: it’s time for more engagement with them, not less… aid should continue to Pakistan.” In the Senate, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein recently questioned whether the U.S. should continue to provide aid to Pakistan, voicing a clear break with her colleagues, Senators John Kerry and Dick Lugar, who have been stalwart supporters of aid to Pakistan.

Since 2001, the majority of U.S. assistance to Pakistan – more than $20 billion – has gone to Pakistan’s military. Recognizing this imbalance in support, the 2009 legislation introduced by Senators Kerry and Lugar sought to “promote an enhanced strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people” by authorizing $7.5 billion over 5 years in non-military aid for democratic governance, economic freedom, investments in people, particularly women and children, and development in regions affected by conflict and displacement. In addition to being an overt attempt to win “hearts and minds” by focusing on Pakistan’s civilians, the bill also signaled a shift to a more stable allocation of aid to a country that has experienced extreme volatility in U.S. aid levels over the past fifty years as geopolitical interests have shifted.

In principle, the bill sought to transcend the fluctuations of bilateral government relationships to directly serve the “people of Pakistan” through a deeper, broader and longer-term engagement with the country’s citizens.

Reneging on the multi-year pledge of billions of dollars cuts at the very core of the desire to build a relationship with the Pakistani people. Pakistanis are generally very skeptical of U.S. development assistance, believing it to be closely linked with U.S. military interests. The initial controversy over the Kerry-Lugar bill in Pakistan reflects this, as does the increased support for the U.S. following its flood relief assistance. The efforts by the U.S. to help Pakistani flood victims across the country – not just in the Taliban-ridden Federally Administered Tribal Areas – demonstrated to Pakistanis that the U.S. genuinely cares about their well-being separate from its national security priorities. Cutting development aid in response to the news that Osama bin Laden’s long-term hideout was in Pakistan will have the opposite effect.

Maintaining economic assistance to Pakistan, despite the very real concerns the U.S. government has about Pakistan’s military and intelligence services, would be one important way to show Pakistani citizens that the U.S. is serious when it says it cares about their livelihoods. Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressman Jim Moran have suggested useful approaches to moving forward with aid to Pakistan. The former has proposed that aid be cut to those institutions found to have supported bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and the latter has stated that aid to education and economic development be maintained above all else.

Congressman Moran’s proposal to maintain education aid to Pakistan would be well received by Pakistanis, especially if new aid models and streamlined aid processes are utilized to maximize benefits for the country.

Education is highly valued by Pakistanis, but unfortunately there is a severe shortage of quality learning opportunities in the country, especially for poor rural communities. Girls in these areas are often the worst off. Pakistan ranks as one of the countries with the most out-of-school children. There is huge demand for education from Pakistani children and their parents but one-third of children ages 6-16 cannot read a simple story and only half can write a sentence. Pakistani youth want to acquire the skills needed to enter the workforce, yet one out of every four youth ages 10 to 19 never get inside the classroom.

There are excellent Pakistani civil society organizations that have a proven track record in expanding quality education, particularly for the marginalized. For example, vast improvements in education can be attributed to the work of the Aga Khan Education Services-Pakistan, the Citizens Foundation, and the Children’s Global Network, among others. In just a few years, the Citizens Foundation has quickly scaled up its work to provide quality schooling for over 100,000 poor children from urban slums and rural areas.

The Pakistani government, on the other hand, has demonstrated a more mixed record, often varying by province. In Sindh province, the reform-minded Education Secretary Naheed Durrant was just replaced after only five months on the job after challenging corruption in teacher hiring. Other provincial governments are working much more proactively to make needed reforms.

There is a growing grassroots movement demanding quality education services for all citizens with media companies, such as GEO TV, hoping to increasingly amplify these voices in the future. This demand for education reform can be reinforced by the U.S. government in two ways: first, by directing resources directly to the civil society organizations leading the reform efforts on the ground; and second, by utilizing diplomatic channels to encourage the Pakistani government to incorporate these innovative models into the broader education system.

The citizens of Pakistan deserve a clear message from the United States that it is truly interested in their well-being, including meeting the demand for reforming education. Development assistance to improve education in Pakistan, if done effectively, is one major area that can support and improve the livelihoods of Pakistanis. These core elements of non-military development are where the U.S. government should be investing its resources to establish a stable and long-term relationship with Pakistan.
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Teachers Training of ECD concluded
by G. H. Farooqui August 06, 2011


Concluding Ceremony of the ECD (early Childhood Development) Teacher Training Program at Eagle Eye Educational Institute, Seen Lasht/
CHITRAL: The Eagle Eye Educational Institute awarded Certificates at a Certificate Awarding Ceremony on conclusion of its Early Childhood Development teachers training program. The training program was held for 20 days wherein 22 participants attended from various educational NGOs including the Aga Khan Education Services, Chitral, I-Read, Anmol, the ITREB, Chitral and Eagle Eye School.

The training program was based on the High scope approach which focuses on active, direct hands on experience of children with people, objects events and ideas. While offering choices based on their interests, the children construct their own knowledge through interaction with the materials and people around them. Teachers and parents offer physical emotional and intellectual supporting active learning setting. The participants were given an opportunity through provision of time and resources to create low/no cost teaching materials for their classrooms. The teaching focused on enhancing the practical skills of the trainees especially in the area of story telling, poems, games and other creative arts. Developing reflective practice through writing daily reflective journals was an important expectation during the training.

The participants were also familiarized on the Learning Through Play Program developed by Hincks- Dell crest Centre in Toronto, Canada whose objective is to work with parents of children 0 – 6 years at home to prepare them for school readiness and to involve children in simple activities at home to enhance brain development. The brain is the only organ in the body which is not fully developed at birth but by the age of 5, 90% of the synapses are made depending on the kinds of experiences and attachment provided to them by their parents and caregivers in the early years. It is hoped that the participants will hold parenting sessions in their respective villages to discuss with parents ways and means of taking advantage of this window of opportunity in child development so that a solid foundation is set for the future success of our Chitrali children. The Urdu Calendars for parents distributed to the participants provide a variety of tips to parents in a pictorial and user friendly manner.

The chief guest of the ceremony was Dr. Mir Afzal Tajik and the other attendees were Zohran Shah, the Director of Eagle Eye Educational Institute, Ms. Yasmin Khan, an education consultant from Canada who oversaw the program with participation of local trainers, Mir Zaman Shah, the GM of Aga khan Education Services, Chitral, Zulfiqar Ali, the Principal of the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School and Ms. Gul Hawa, the Principal of Eagle Eye School spoke about the importance of the ECD program.

The participants shared their experiences during the concluding program. They highlighted the immense benefits of the training program to their professional development and were very appreciative of the practical skills which have prepared them to lead as ECD teachers in their respective areas in Chitral. The confidence and commitment of the participants in enhancing quality learning of our young children was clearly visible in their presentations of the Holy Quran, Naat, Duas, poems, skits, etc.

In his address, the Chief Guest Dr. Tajik lauded the efforts of Eagle Eye Educational Institute in building capacity of Early Childhood educators as this is an area of major focus by AKDN institutions and other NGOs in Chitral. He emphasized the importance of providing quality education in the early years to enable a successful future for our children. Mir Zaman Shah GM AKES,P encouraged the participants to be persistent in implementing the skills and ideas learned in the program in their respective schools. Zulfiqar reminded the audience on the importance for every generation of teachers to provide education based on the need of the time and we cannot afford to teach the next generation in the same manner as we were taught by our teachers. The program concluded with a brief display of engaging resources created by the participants.
G.H. Farooqi PO Box NO. 50 GPO Chitral OR Bank Islami Main Branch Chitral
telephone No. 03337069572, 03469002167, 03159698446, 03025989602, 0943 3207373, 316052, 414418

http://www.groundreport.com/Media_and_T ... ed/2940652
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