KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday worked out a plan to bring three million out-of-school children back to school if an expenditure of Rs800 million was incurred on it through informal mode of education.

This he said while presiding over a meeting of the board of governors of the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) at Chief Minister Secretariat.

He asked the officials concerned to submit their final proposal about the plan.

Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar; chief secretary Siddique Memon, additional chief secretary (development) M. Waseem, principal secretary to CM Naveed Kamran, secretary education Fazal Pechuho and others attended the meeting.

Managing director of SEF Naheed ShahDurrani said in her briefing that in the last one and half year, the foundation had expanded the portfolio in accordance with the vision of the government and in the background of the challenges faced by the education sector in Sindh.

She said by now the foundation had an outreach to 2,447 schools having an enrolment of 491,555 students. Most of the SEF supported low-cost schools were located inruralareas and served students belonging to extremely poor population of the province.Also the SEF continued to work on quality components to ensure that students` learning levels meet a minimum quality assurance criterion.

Chief Minister Shah examined the foundation`s portfolio and observed that at an average cost of Rs800 per child/ per month inclusive of administrative expenditure, the government could provide a minimum prescribed quality of education to another up to three million out-of-school children.

`It should be a doable target for my government,` said Mr Shah.

He asked the members of the board including ex-officio members to begin thinking on doable options. Minister Dahar said the government would explore all options to bring out-of-school children back to schools and ensure that children of underdeveloped regions were not left out in the scheme.

The board approved the innovative interventions proposed by the SEF management for enhancing the quality of education in SEF supported schools, including introduction of technology in 600 SEF schools and beginning a fellowship programme titled `teach for change` on the pattern of `teach for Pakistan`.

The meeting participants were informed that under the foundation`s introduction of technology intervention; an ADP scheme titled; `Introduction of Smart Teaching and Learning in Schools` (INSTAL); SEF partner schools would be provided with a cur-riculum software; 30 computer tablets per school for students and matching grants for solar panels. The objectives were to facilitateintroductionof technology-basedlearning and teaching for students by supplementing traditional teaching methods.

Through `teach for change` fellowship programme, the SEF will encourage fresh graduates to teach for short periods of time in the foundation-supported schools and become `change agents` in multiple ways by assisting in teaching certain subjects; improving school learning environment; and strengthening academic planning, etc.

The chief minister said: `We will have to march ahead and empower our students to prepare them for tomorrow,` adding, `the government is confronted with complex challenges on the education front as such; multiple interventions and multiple players will have to be deployed, however, there must be effective and visible outcomes.

He said the SEF must also make those innovative interventions so that they convert into value for Sindh`s students.

He also instructed both the officials to explore possibilities of optimum utilisation of government school buildings especially dysfunctional schools; instituting afternoon shifts to bring in greater number of children to schools.

The board approved the post-primary education policy presented by the SEF to enable students to move on to secondary education and beyond.