KARACHI: The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) has decided to carry out third party validation of the results achieved under the modern education and mainstreaming of madaris (seminaries) programme. In order to tackle religious extremism, the Musharraf government launched a five-year Madressah Reform Project in 2002, aimed at modernising religious seminaries by broadening their curriculum, establishing educational standards etc. The current regime re-shifted its focus on mainstreaming of madaris as government said that during the period of 2015 to 2018 NCHD’s focus has remained on modern education in madaris and mainstreaming of madaris. Further, the NCHD plans to improve the quality of its education program in madaris, its efficiency and effectiveness by conducting a third party evaluation exercise. For this purpose, NCHD invites proposals from reputable organizations having proven experience in conducting Third Party Validation. NCHD works with the district/agency education department at the district/agency level to facilitate madaris as well as education department for filling the gaps in primary education. NCHD is presently working in 13 districts of four Federal Areas of Pakistan i.e Gilgit Baltistan, AJK, ICT and FATA. The NCHD is working to bring about qualitative improvement in students of Madaris through provision of quality education in accordance with the National Education Standards. With the aim to encourage madaris to introduce Science, Maths, Social Studies and English in their curriculum so that the academic proficiency for class I-V could be enhanced in the target areas, NCHD is working with Education Department (ED), and the madaris. According to the NCHD, the purpose of evaluation is to examine the achievements of the organization in the light of its stated objectives on mainstreaming of madaris program in tangible terms. The third party consultant will recommend strategies/approaches/activities to improve the efficacy of the program to achieve anticipated outcomes and the evaluation team will also evaluate how well NCHD reached its stated goals. The consultant/firms will design a study to assess the quality and amount of inputs and output delivered through this project during implementation. The consultant will also assess and evaluate the effect of NCHD’s intervention in madaris. The review will cover all important key stakeholders of the program. “This study will be based on interviews/group discussion/observations, physical verification of every location including teacher performance standards and students learning levels. Besides qualitative assessment of the project implementation, the study will provide progress on the output indicators as per the log-frame/project design”, said NCHD. The evaluation exercise will be conducted from September, 2016. The estimated duration is 6 to 8 weeks. The firm/agency would carry out evaluation exercise for the 2480 students of 100 madarrasa feeder schools located at Islamabad, Nagar, Astore, Gilgit, Khyber Agency, Mohmand, Bajaur, Muzzafarabad, Neelum, Bagh, Rawlakot, Kotli and Bhimber. Published in Daily Times, December 14th 2017.