Efforts in collaboration with mosques vital to educate out-of-school children: President

ISLAMABAD,  :President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday stressed the need for making all possible efforts in collaboration with the mosques to educate around 28 million out-of-school children in the country.

The president, chairing a meeting to discuss the role of mosques in promotion of education, said the religious platform could be used for promotion of literacy in the country.

Caretaker Minister for Religious Affairs, education ministers of Sindh and Azad Jammu & Kashmir, provincial education secretaries, and representatives of Auqaf and Religious Affairs departments attended the meeting.

The president was briefed about the Accelerated Learning Programme.

It was told that over 70,000 out-of-school children in Islamabad were enrolled in the schools.

The meeting was informed that the Accelerated Learning Programme Model envisaged the provision of five-year education within 24 to 30 months and enrollment of the out-of-school children, and the the grown-up children, who were deprived of education, could benefit from it.

It was told that the said programme was flexible, focused and low-cost initiative which could also be implemented at the places provided by the community, religious seminaries and second shifts in schools.

Religious Affairs Minister Aneeq Ahmed said the Federal Government would extend all possible facilities to educate the out-of-school children.

The participants of the meeting agreed to formulate a policy paper to utilise the platform of mosques for the education purpose.

The draft of the policy paper would be presented before the Federal Cabinet for approval.