Quality Education for 10,000 children in Sindh

The quarter’s trainings have come to an end and teachers have started to note the positive impact on students. 32 girls registered in vocational training centers (VTC) and have managed to acquire new skills in sewing, hand embroidery and henna painting.

The VTC for information technology also revealed positive results. The second batch of students completed their three-month training in March 2014. Here, they learned office automation; use of operating System Windows 7, typing and the basic use of internet. All 15 girls enrolled completed the training successfully.

The impact of the English reading program can be viewed from the number of English books borrowed from the library. Teachers helped students issue books according to their reading levels. Owing to the English language trainings, a massive increase in English books issued has been noted (59% of all books issued were in English compared to previous years when majority of books issued were in Urdu). Community members have also been encouraged to borrow books.

The trainings are reaching an end with positive results. In response to feedback regarding English training for teachers, we learnt that trainings should be given step by step.

The Mathematics and English Reading trainings in NOWA & IRC have also reached completion, the feedback stated that at times the content could be too dense for new teachers and the trainings should be conducted step by step. The trainings in Science proved to be extremely interactive and participation from new teachers as well as those teachers whose students had no done well in the past was very high.

A Parent Teacher Association has been formed and is a way of keeping teachers and community members involved in their children’s education. They accompanied students on field trips and science fairs. With the help of the PTA, a hand-washing unit for students has been installed in the Rind School.

The trainings in these schools have been made possible thanks to the support of our sponsors!

The teachers had received training in pedagogy which taught them to ask open ended question. This has helped in developing students’ confidence in voicing their views freely about a topic and sharing their understanding of it. 8,299 DIL students in Sindh have already benefited by this training of teachers.

As many rural schools are made with mud plastering of the walls, communities and teachers came together to complete the annual repair and maintenance work of school walls and roof. Minor woodwork and electrical repairs were also completed before the cold winter set in in December.

As part of a program wide initiative, DIL students of Grade VII and VIII worked with adults in their family and neighbourhood, teaching them basic literacy and numeracy as well as some simple but useful everyday things like searching for and saving contacts in their mobile phones, reading expiry dates and telling the time. Students are very proud of their achievements and thoroughly enjoyed the experience where they got to reverse the usual roles and had their elders coming to them for classes. The participants of this activity will be awarded with the solar lights later on.

A Vocational Training Centre of Information Technology was initiated at Sobho Dero School in the afternoon to inculcate the skills of information technology in the girls of underprivileged communities and enabling them to meet the challenges of today’s technological era. In the first batch 12 girls are enrolled. The duration of the course is three months. VTC trainer is IT teacher of this school. Most of the trainees are DIL graduates.

In one of the Sindh schools parents decided to contribute towards an electric water cooler for their school. The PTA met and agreed that a donation fund will be set up for all to contribute what they can and when the funds are sufficient to purchase a water cooler, the PTA will buy it for the school.