Education

Maan Jee Welfare Lower Secondary School

Of the major focus areas of MOVE is to set up high-quality schools in under-privileged communities. MOVE currently runs the Maan Jee Welfare Lower Secondary School in the Nusrat Bhutto Colony community. This leading English-medium school is headed by Ms Shamim Bilgrami, a highly-respected educationalist and social worker. This school pays particular attention to the training of teachers and the teaching tools and techniques used. Our financial resources are primarily deployed in these two areas to ensure that students receive a high quality of education.

The objectives of these schools are:

  • To provide education that “fosters an open mind, teaches respect and tolerance for diversity and develops a sense of civic responsibility”.
  • To provide employment opportunities to young girls from the communities, who are educated to the Intermediate or Bachelor level, by training them to become teachers.
  • To use these schools as “civic centers” by organizing monthly meetings of the mothers of the students to discuss community and personal issues.

Program Highlights

  • Over 500 students, about 55% female enrollment.
  • Monthly fee Pak Rs 300 (US 1.65) per student.
  • The only school in the community with a fully-equipped computer lab and medical clinic.
  • 100% success rate of our students in the Sindh Educational Board Examinations.

Maan Jee Schools	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006
Number of Students	404	380	424	496	460	466	562	715	648	601	496	547	542	512	374	367	317	300
Number of Female Students	222	211	235	277	258	264	301	396	353	331	274	292	301	281	213	195	192	189
Percentage of Female Students	55%	55%	56%	56%	56%	56.6%	53.5%	55%	54%	55%	55%	53%	56%	55%	57%	53%	61%	63%
Monthly Fee per Student (PKR)	FREE	300	200	200	170	140	140	140	140	140	140	120	100	100	85	85	35	30
Number of Students with 100% Exemption	404	42	40	48	41	52	52	68	65	48	42	24	22	26	27	24	21	34
Number of Students with 50% Exemption	-	29	15	16	14	33	33	96	89	73	52	43	53	62	23	25	25	26
Number of Teachers	24	25	26	28	26	26	30	38	31	30	27	25	27	20	18	16	13	12

Medium Term Objectives

One of our objectives is to use the infrastructure of the existing schools to undertake Unemployment Alleviation Programs through skills training. In these programs, members of underprivileged communities will be taught practical and marketable skills, which are easy to learn and can be acquired in a relatively short time period. It is our view that unemployment, rather than formal education or literacy, is the real reason for continuing poverty in Pakistan, India, and many other developing countries. According to Government of Pakistan published unemployment figures, 59.2% of the unemployed in the country are literate or semi-literate. Amongst the unemployed, 29.7% have a matriculation level (10th grade) education. This highlights a severe disconnect between type of education provided and skills demanded by the economy as well as the quality of education being achieved in schools throughout the country. Currently, technical education and training in Pakistan is primarily provided by Public institutions, which suffer from lack of infrastructure and appropriate training tools, little responsiveness to changing market demands, and lowly-qualified teachers due to low salary scales in the Public sector. It is no surprise, therefore, that the enrollments at the Government technical schools are extremely low and dropout rates extremely high.

Therefore, One of MOVE’s major objectives is to provide more practical, marketable, and economically-relevant education in the form of technical and vocational skills training programs. These programs will also provide basic business coaching to prepare students to set up and run their own small businesses. If appropriate and feasible, our programs may also provide financing to high-performing students for the purposes of setting up small businesses of their own.