Rawalpindi - Chairman Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) Engineer Qamar-ul-Islam Raja has said that promotion of education in the impecunious strata is a noble job and concerted efforts put forth by the PEF will go a long way in eradicating illiteracy and ignorance from the province.
He was presiding over a departmental meeting at PEF regional office on Monday. He said that PEF was performing a yeoman service by extending the life-changing opportunity of free school education to the children who otherwise could not access it due to lack of resources.
He said that PEF introduced different public private partnership-based programmes of free education in the province, including the Potohar region. Free educational initiatives of the PEF are the biggest venture of its kind in the province. He said that PEF had also ensured conducive atmosphere in its partner schools, besides arranging capacity building trainings for the teachers and principals, so that the students could enjoy quality education.
Qamar-ul-Islam further said that PEF was a ray of hope for the hopeless. The PEF has given books and pens in the hands of child labourers and housemaids so that they can change their life through education. He commended the fact that PEF was playing a leading role in meeting the targets of education sector roadmap programme by arranging free education of 2.2 million out of school/ dropout children in Punjab up to 2019. Earlier, PEF Regional Director Naveed Abbas said that as much as 175,000 deserving students were enrolled in PEF partner schools situated in 10 districts of northern region of Punjab. The PEF provides monthly fee and textbooks to partner school students so that they may not be burdened, he added.