ISLAMABAD: About 93 per cent of the poorest of the poor in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have agreed to send their daughters to schools after being registered for a monthly stipend.
However, unavailability of facilities such as transport is discouraging them.
This was stated during a briefing and dialogue Female education in KP organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here on Tuesday.
The KP government launched the stipend scheme for the girl students in 2008 and till now 280,000 pupils have been receiving Rs200 per month. The stipend is conditional with 80 per cent monthly attendance.
The participants were informed that the SDPI conducted a survey last year in which 600 poorest of the poor families in the province were interviewed. The result of the survey showed that 93 per cent of the families showed willingness to send their daughters to schools if they were registered for the stipend.
Mohammad Zeshan, a representative of the SDPI, said the stipend scheme can help enhance the literacy rate but there were so many other difficulties due to which the parents hesitated to send their daughters to schools.
Internews
