Daily Times

President Dr Arif Alvi inaugurated the British Council’s third ILM SUMMIT at a local hotel in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The two-day summit celebrates the success of Ilm Possible, an initiative aimed towards using active citizenship to promote enrollment of students and sports to improve retention.

The president lauded the role of the British Council towards promoting education in Pakistan. The event was also attended by British High Commissioner Dr Christian Turner, as well as Country Director British Council Amir Ramzan.

“The Ilm Possibleprogramme has been a source of great pride for us in Pakistan; enrolling 350,000 students, including close to 150,000 female students is great, but the most important number for me is the 86% plus retention rate, which means we are not just getting them into schools but doing enough for them to stay on. This would not have been possible without including the element of active citizenship whereby community-based volunteers work diligently to convince parents to send children to school. Our ambition is to get 500,000 children in school by the close of Phase II of this project,” said British CouncilCountry DirectorAmir Ramzan.

In its third iteration, IlmSummit brings together children from across 60 districts in Pakistan that are part of the British Council’s Ilm Possible: Take a Child to School (TACS). Ilm Possibleis a project co-funded by the British Council and Educate a Child (EAC), and initiative of Education Above All, Qatar. The project successfully enrolled over 225,000 previously out-of-school (OOSC) in Phase I (2014-2017). Ilm Possible: TACS Phase II was officially launched in January 2018. The project has been rolled out in 60 plus districts in all four provinces.

The core activity of increasing enrolment and retention is supplemented by advocating for quality education and enabling communities to hold school authorities and government departments responsible.