The Solution to Pakistan’s Illiteracy Has Schooled 175,000 So Far

According to Pakistan’s Annual Status of Education Report, Pakistan faces an educational emergency. 21% of school-aged children are out of school. That is more than one in every five individuals who make up the generation that will determines the country’s future.

Yet there is a shining beacon of hope. CARE Pakistan is educating the country’s children for mere pennies per day.

By utilizing existing infrastructure, CARE saves on construction costs and is able to channel funding directly to the students and teachers. Pioneering an incredibly cost-effective public-private partnership, CARE is able to educate a child for as little as £1 per child per month.

The first CARE school was established in 1988 in Sheikhupura. It was the success of these initial CARE students that led Punjab’s government to approach CARE to take on its own failing institutions. 26 years later, CARE is operating 257 schools across Pakistan and educating over 175,000 underprivileged children. CARE Pakistan’s model is unique because it takes the buildings which already exist and puts functional schools back into them.

CARE’s low cost model has taken Pakistan’s most underprivileged children and allowed them to become pioneers in Pakistani society. CARE graduates range from doctors and chemists to engineers and accountants to teachers and lawyers.

Entrepreneur Muhammad Ali, who lost his father when his family were on hard times, now manages his own technology business at the age of 23. He employs 40 workers using affiliates around the world. CARE graduate Rabia Ashiq, meanwhile, represented her country in the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

CARE goes beyond the basics with development initiatives like Teacher Training, Access to English Programs, Career Counseling, Enterprise Development, and Scholarships to Higher Education.

You can help achieve CARE’s mission to see 1 million underprivileged children learning in schools by 2018 by donating a small bit every month: www.carepakistan.org.uk

(WATCH their video “What Can One Pound Buy?”)