Three organisations join our Education Champion Network in Pakistan to improve girls’ access to and completion of secondary education.
Malala Fund is proud to announce new grants totalling $655,000 to three civil society organisations working to increase girls’ access to and completion of secondary education in Pakistan — Tabadlab, Youth Tube and Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi. These partners are pushing for reforms to recruit more teachers, strengthen women’s leadership in education and ensure continued learning for girls at risk of dropping out. With these organisations joining Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network, we are now actively working with 17 partners in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, 53% of children who are out of school are girls, and the vast majority of them live in rural areas. The country’s education sector faces limited financial resources that are further strained by public debt and climate-related events. This has reinforced barriers for close to 6 million adolescent girls who are out of school, contributing to a national education emergency and highlighting the urgent need for targeted action by the government.
Girls face a lack of free, quality schools and teachers to meet their education needs, and increasing poverty levels that pressure them to contribute to household incomes instead of study. Malala Fund has been tackling these challenges since 2013, investing $14.6 million to date in local activists, civil society and enterprises in Pakistan working to ensure girls in their communities can attend and complete school.
Malala Yousafzai, co-founder and Executive Chair of Malala Fund, shared the announcement while in Pakistan to deliver remarks at the “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities” conference in Islamabad, Pakistan on January 11-12, where she emphasised the urgency for governments to take action on their commitments to ensure girls’ right to learn.
Learn more about our new partners below:
Tabadlab advocates for reforms to address teacher shortages that prevent girls from going to and completing secondary education. They are advocating to policymakers and delivering a media campaign to call for one teacher per classroom in public girls’ middle schools — aiming to reach 1 million girls across Pakistan at risk of dropping out. https://tabadlab.com/
Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi aims to mobilise civil society and partners in Sindh province to advocate for adopting and mainstreaming the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) programme to better transition vulnerable girls from primary to secondary education. TaRL is an accelerated learning initiative that has shown promising results in integrating children at risk of dropping out or out of school back into the education system, even during emergencies. https://itacec.org/
Youth Tube aims to improve girls’ access to quality education in Punjab by strengthening women’s representation and influence in educational leadership roles. Through training, policy advocacy and media campaigns, they aim to support women to push for lasting changes that improve girls’ school access and completion. https://youthtube.pk/