鈥楾he first ray of light鈥�: Illuminating a path for Pakistan鈥檚 out-of-school children
| Islamabad
A young woman in a headscarf is seated on a sheet of carpet with rows of buttons spread out in front of her. 鈥淣ow, Nauman,鈥� she says, looking at a young boy seated opposite her, 鈥渟how me how you would solve 4 plus 2.鈥�
The boy separates one row of buttons into two columns. He counts under his breath as he touches the buttons in a sequence, then proudly answers: 鈥淪ix!鈥� The teacher moves on to another student and another math problem, but not before saying 鈥�Shaabash,鈥� the Urdu word for 鈥渨ell done.鈥�
This bare-bones setting 鈥� a corrugated iron shed in the improvised settlement of Mahra Akku 鈥� is one of eight community schools operated by the Pehli Kiran School System, a nonprofit that provides education in the Pakistani capital鈥檚 slum areas.
Why We Wrote This
About 35% of Pakistani kids ages 5 to 16 don鈥檛 attend school. Over the past three decades, the nonprofit Pehli Kiran has taught more than 25,000 children in the Pakistani capital鈥檚 slum areas.
Pehli Kiran, which means 鈥渢he first ray of light鈥� in Urdu, was set up in 1995 when its founder, Sabira Navid Qureshi, saw a child selling papadams, or flatbread snacks, in a bazaar. When Ms. Qureshi, who continues to serve as the managing trustee of the organization, asked the boy why he wasn鈥檛 going to school, he told her that his neighborhood did not have one.
She followed him to the slum area where he lived with his parents. Ms. Qureshi says it broke her heart to learn that not a single child in that community was attending school. 鈥淚 decided then and there that I had to do something about it,鈥� she says.
Ms. Qureshi began teaching the young papadam seller and several of his friends under a tree in the slum area, thus beginning the journey of Pehli Kiran Schools. In the three decades since, Pehli Kiran has taught more than 25,000 children and currently enrolls about 3,000 students.
Bureaucratic hurdles
Roughly 26 million Pakistani children ages 5 to 16, about 35%, do not attend school, according to UNICEF. Though providing education is the government鈥檚 responsibility, the public school system does not enroll children who lack valid birth certificates. And since approximately 37% of the population cannot read and write, parents who lack the knowledge to navigate the bureaucracy of registering children frequently decide to skip this step.
In most cases, the parents themselves lack government ID because they are illiterate.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not by chance that we have the second-highest out-of-school population in the world,鈥� Ms. Qureshi says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e expecting these children to have birth certificates when even their parents don鈥檛 have formal identification. This stratum of society is completely undocumented.鈥�
Pehli Kiran not only enrolls these students but also partners with the government to get them registered into the national database of citizens.
About half of Pakistan鈥檚 out-of-school children do manual labor or are sent out by their parents to beg on the streets. Teaching these children is challenging, and not just because they have to juggle their studies with full-time work. Many of the children with whom Pehli Kiran works are already in their teens, and have not attended school before. To enroll them in the same classes as much younger children would likely embarrass them, says Ansa Bibi, the principal of Pehli Kiran School No. 3.
To meet these challenges, Pehli Kiran uses a separate syllabus for kids who are much older than their level of educational attainment. This syllabus, the Accelerated Learning Program, was developed by the Pakistani government in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, a department of the Japanese government that provides support to developing countries.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an accelerated program that brings kids up to grade-five level in 24 months,鈥� says Irshad Saeed, the academic program manager at Pehli Kiran. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 been the game changer for us in teaching these kids basic literacy in an age-appropriate way.鈥�
One of these children is Fahad Ali, a 16-year-old orphan who works as a barber in Islamabad. 鈥淚 want to become so successful that people talk about my life,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檝e learned a lot here at this school, especially how to carry myself, how to talk to people, and how to tell the difference between right and wrong.鈥�
Following kids 鈥渨herever they go鈥�
In 2024, the Pakistani government launched a large-scale effort to deport Afghan refugees after terrorist attacks increased along the Durand Line 鈥� the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pehli Kiran, which was one of the only groups that provided education to this community, lost more than 1,000 students and had to shut two schools.
There is also the problem of evictions. Since the schools operate mostly in slum areas, where virtually all of the residents are illegal squatters, the Capital Development Authority, the governmental body responsible for urban planning in Islamabad, sometimes dismantles the settlements on short notice.
To cope with this possibility, Pehli Kiran has ensured that half of its schools have mobile infrastructure. 鈥淚f the community is dismantled and the residents move elsewhere, we are able to follow them wherever they go,鈥� says Ghazanfar Ali, community engagement manager for Pehli Kiran.
According to Baela Jamil, an education specialist based in Lahore, Pehli Kiran occupies a vital niche in providing education to the most vulnerable communities in Islamabad. 鈥淚n a country like Pakistan, these are bold attempts by great citizens who think about coming up with solutions,鈥� she says,
Pehli Kiran has invested a great deal in community engagement, trying to persuade reluctant parents to send their children to school. In more conservative segments of Pakistani society, it is common for girls to be kept at home. In such communities, Pehli Kiran sends its team to change minds and challenge age-old perceptions. As a result, about half of Pehli Kiran鈥檚 students are girls.
