adults education in Pakistan
In pursuit of an actual 100% literate school
Karachi: It is a classroom of about 40 students, with the teacher helping her class to form basic sentences in English. The class reads aloud what is written on the blackboard and responds actively when the teacher asks questions. This could be the picture of any classroom in the world. The only thing that makes it different though is the fact that this classroom comprises 40 adults and is being held after school hours.
The school where these adults are being taught is Dawood Public School (DPS), and the student body in the classroom comprises the support staff working at the school as sweepers, maids, gardeners, watchmen, and security guards. They have been studying English, Maths and Urdu for the past two years now; since the time the school's current chief executive officer (CEO) initiated the project. DPS CEO Sabrina Dawood said, "Imagine what the world would be like if you didn't know how to read anything at all. Most of our support staff cannot read whatever is written on billboards, on the walls, on television and in the newspapers. What we want to do is to enable them to read so much so that they are at least able to know the world around them better. Our ultimate dream is to make the school hundred per cent literate in the true sense."
As Dildara, a worker at DPS recalls with a candid laugh, "We were initially invited to study under the project for a period of four weeks only, probably so that we wouldn't run away. But after those four weeks, we were ourselves so interested in learning new things that there has been no turning back since then."
At the school, it is mandatory for these 'students' to come to class everyday in order to study. If they do not do so, they can even risk losing their jobs. Esther, a maid at DPS and a mother of four children confesses that at first, she did not find studying interesting at all. "But now I am able to comprehend the difference between my former and new self. I can now find mistakes in my own children's homework and that gives me a sense of empowerment and achievement," said a smiling Esther.
On attending classes regularly, Elizabeth, who is also a maid at DPS said, "It makes me both happy and sad to get the opportunity to study at this stage in life. I am pleased because I have been given an opportunity to study for free by the school administration, but I am sad at the same time because now I have realised that had I been able to read and write earlier, my life would have been far more successful."
DPS Pre-Primary In-charge Nusrat Hilal volunteers to teach the school's support staff everyday for one hour. When asked what the most challenging part of the project is, she replied, "Teaching adults is far more demanding than teaching children because kids are fast learners. Plus, the adults we have here are already burdened by financial and work pressures so to make sure that their attention does not get diverted gets difficult at times." Daily times
