Right to Education
Education is something which shall come to our children as a matter of their right. Yet, more children are out of schools in Pakistan than any other country on the face of earth. Even if education is made available, the system is so designed that it serves to perpetuate the divide in the society instead of getting it abridged. Thus, provision of quality education remains a dream in this country of ours rather than a matter of routine. We, at Nexus, further believe that not all the out-of-school children are the same or similar and that they have their different reasons for not coming to schools. Some cannot afford, some work to earn a living for their families, some fear – and consequently escape from – the strict school environments, some simply do not understand the value of getting educated, and some do not find a school within a reachable distance. The situation is even worse when it comes to girls. They have some additional and peculiar obstacles to overcome too. Geographical factors – such as distances – become more unsurmountable in their case. Absence of toilets in schools makes another of the stumbling blocks. Family honour or culture, in some places, hinders the access further. So on and so forth.
Ton start with, the Nexus undertakes advocacy to seek tailormade solutions for each of the subclass of these out of school children. And not just advocacy, we create pilot projects for others to see, learn from, improve, adapt to their own circumstances, and scale. For instance, we were the pioneers of the highly acknowledged Early Morning Schools in South Punjab for those of our children who have to work later in the day to make both ends meet for them and their families. We don’t want to see these children working at these tender ages altogether, yet until that much desired and ambitious goal is achieved, we want to ensure that the doors of education are not closed on them, at the least. Opening doors of public schools on transgenders and converting juvenile jails to educational institutes were other of our noteworthy initiatives in the field of education, the details of which have been encapsulated in separate sections.
