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ISLAMABAD, (MANEND NEWS): Prime Minister Imran Khan launched
Ehsaas School Stipend program for the deserving households across
the country in Islamabad on Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, PM Imran Khan said an important aspect of
this program is that it will help bring the out of school children
especially the girls to the educational institutions.
The Prime Minister regretted that no attention was paid in the past for
the promotion of education and that is why about 20 million children
today are out of school.
Emphasizing upon the education of girls to uplift the society, the Prime
Minister was appreciative of keeping the stipend of female students
higher in Ehsaas School Stipend Program.
He said the use of technology will help ensure transparency and no
fake entries in the stipend program. Imran Khan noted that it is
responsibility of the government to extend facilitation and establish
schools in areas where these are accessible to the children.
On the occasion PM Imran Khan was briefed on the countrywide launch
of Ehsaas Education Stipends for primary, secondary, and higher
secondary education. Education Conditional Cash Transfers are an
important pillar of Ehsaas and are included in the Ehsaas framework as
Policy #73 ‘Education Conditional Cash Transfers’. Education
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) serve the dual purpose of socially
assisting vulnerable households and at the same time reduce the
number of out of school children, which is an important outcome for
Pakistan given that there are 18.7 million out-of-school children in the
country.
Pakistan has been running an Education Conditional Cash Transfer for
primary school going children called Waseela-e-Taleem since 2012 in
selected districts; the program encountered a number of challenges
including: high administrative cost charged by NGOs that were
administering the program; high error and fraud due to the program
being paper-based; weak compliance monitoring and unpredictability
associated with the program being run by NGOs; Limited human
resource to enroll students into the program; low stipend amount
being given to children; being limited to 5th grade and not including
secondary education, whereas the latter could be of high impact for
the program; not providing an additional incentive for girls, overall and
missing the opportunity to incentivize girls education through this CCT;
and above all it did not include an incentive to address the issue of
school drop out for girls, which is a major problem in girls’ education.
The previously run education CCT was limited in geographic scope;
and lacked appropriate federal-provincial partnerships. Also, payments
to beneficiaries were being made through the old BISP payment
system which was plagued by many challenges. Ehsaas Education
Stipends” addresses all these challenges. First, cost-effective
institutional infrastructure has been developed to implement this
program nationwide and reliance on NGOs has been eliminated.
Because of this, operational cost has been reduced from 8% to 3%.
End-to-end digitization of a number of processes, has eliminated the
space for abuse in terms of ineligible children being enrolled. Rather
than reliance on NGOs, compliance monitors have been hired and a
Project Monitoring Unit has been established.” Also, through an MOU
with the National Commission on Human Development, additional
1000 staff members have been engaged to enroll students.
The stipend amount has been doubled for primary school going
children and has been further increased for girls. The program gives
stipends from age 4-22 years—i.e., from primary to the higher
secondary levels. As per Ehsaas’ weighted-in-favour-of-girls stipends
policy for all conditional cash transfer programs, girls get a higher
stipend across all age groups, which signals the government’s intent to
facilitate girls’ education.
Briefing the PM on newly rolled out education CCT under Ehsaas,
Special Assistant to the PM on Poverty Alleviation Senator Dr. Sania
Nishtar said, “Primary school children are provided Ehsaas Education
Stipends of Rs. 1,500 for boy child and Rs. 2,000 per quarter for girl
child. Secondary school children is granted Ehsaas Education Stipends
of Rs. 2,500 for boys and Rs. 3,000 per quarter for girls. Students of
higher secondary level are given Rs. 3,500 for boys and Rs. 4,000 per
quarter for girls. The Ehsaas Education Stipends program with higher
incentive for girls, will encourage parents to send their children
particularly girls to schools.”
A one-time Ehsaas graduation bonus of Rs. 3,000 is part of Ehsaas
School Stipend program to encourage girls to complete primary
education. This award is being given to girl students completing Grade
5 from Ehsaas eligible families. The graduation bonus has been
designed to encourage girls’ education till secondary level.
The program is operational nationwide in 160 districts. MOUs have
been signed with all provinces and federating units to ensure their
collaboration, since they are responsible for supply side matters
(quality of schools) in this program. Payments to beneficiaries are
made through the new fully biometric payment system, with markedly
improved features Under the nationwide Ehsaas Education Stipends
program, students aged 4-22 years of all Ehsaas beneficiary families
are eligible to get education stipends. Ehsaas, Pakistan government’s
flagship poverty alleviation program, has introduced concrete
measures to ensure that women and girls are given the same support
as boys and men at every-level.
More than three-quarters of its entire program’s benefits are dedicated
to women and girls under the “Ehsaas 50+ benefits policy for women
and girls”. All of the eight million beneficiaries of the Ehsaas Kafaalat
cash transfer scheme and the Ehsaas One Women One Account
financial inclusion initiative are women. In addition to the education
CCT, Ehsaas Nashonuma, (which provides specialised nutrition food
and cash transfers to children and their mothers to prevent the
occurrence of stunting through centres in the most disadvantaged
districts of the country) also has a higher stipend policy for the girl
child. Under Ehsaas’ undergraduate scholarship scheme, need- and
merit-based scholarships are given to hundreds of thousands of
students in Pakistan, with strictly half of all scholarships reserved for
girls. Delivery on the 50+ benefits for women and girls’ metric is
rigorously followed up.