Calling Children Back to School

Abstract

Pakistan offers a variety of educational opportunities to the different pockets of its population. Cultural, ethnic and class divide across the four provinces of Pakistan affects access to education as well as quality of schooling, social norms and role expectations for boys and girls. Despite efforts by the Government many children remain out of school. CARE (a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty in over 90 countries around the world) has also been working in some of the most deprived and excluded communities in Pakistan to address the challenge of bringing out of school children back to school. This chapter focuses on two such communities: The Hindu minority communities settled in the desert area in the southern Sindh province; and Pashtun communities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province. Using community-based approaches CARE promoted Accelerated Learning Program for out-of-school girls in KPK. In Sindh, CARE’s focus has been on creating opportunities for communities to find and raise their voices against early marriages for girls, thus encouraging girls to stay in school. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)