Elementary and Secondary School Education Foundation (ESEF) pledges to set up 1,000 community schools for girls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

15-03-2022

Anna Magdalena Comploi 

Pakistan and Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

Recently, the Elementary and Secondary School Education Foundation (ESEF) announced that it would establish a further 1,000 community schools targeting localities where there is no government school within a 0.5km radius in hilly areas and 1km in flat areas, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (DAWN, 2022). 

The ESEF is a foundation established in 2002 by an ordinance of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that primarily builds community schools for girls that lack access to government education (ESEF, 2022). It aims to improve basic literacy (with a particular focus on the female literacy), promote community engagement and improve the quality of available education, including by engaging the private sector (ESEF, 2022). Despite its worked being aimed at helping girls, the foundation has also admitted boys that had no other educational opportunities (DAWN, 2022). So far, the schools set up by ESEF only provide primary education, but the foundation has stated that it would start establishing high schools in the coming years (DAWN, 2022). So far, the foundation has built 2,219 community schools in 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and enrolled 136,650 students (ESEF, 2022).

Sources and further reading: 

Dawn. (2022, March 15). 1,000 more girls community schools to be set up in KP in upcoming 

academic year. Dawn. Retrieved March 15, 2022, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1680042/1000-more-girls-community-schools-to-be-set-up-in-kp-in-upcoming-academic-year

E.S.E.F. (2022). ESEF-KP – Elementary & Secondary Education Foundation. Elementary & 

Secondary Education Foundation. Retrieved March 15, 2022, from https://eef.org.pk