The Ministry of Education, Trainings and Standards in Higher Education, Government of Pakistan is running the nationwide Non-Formal Primary Education Program in all provinces and regions of Pakistan, named as “Basic Education Community Schools”. BECS is running thousands of schools in the country including FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan, AJ & Kashmir and Isl
amabad (ICT). 3 million out of school children educated since 2006 by BECS and almost 6 Million are in enrollment. The BECS prefers to enroll female students and employ female teachers to impart education in its schools; 80% of teachers are females, and 60% of learners are female. The BEC Schools are based on Non-Formal basic education system having a single home based room for school (Class I-V) where the premises is provided free of cost by the community. In each BEC School, 30 learners of age group 4-16 years are mandatory. Single teacher is responsible for classes I to V of a school by adopting multi-grade teaching methods; based on concurrent curriculum. The teachers’ honorarium, learning material and text books are provided by the Government of Pakistan. The objective of BECS is “to strengthen non-formal approach to supplement the formal education for eradication of illiteracy and achievement of Universal Primary Education (UPE) as envisaged by Constitution of Pakistan (Article 25-A) and in MDGs, by extending free and flexible basic education opportunities to out-of-school children and youth, having no access to the formal system of education, especially disadvantaged children and girls”.
