Education works. This is fundamental in our beliefs, particularly primary education and education for girls. These are actually the cornerstone of our human capital development and poverty reduction strategy. It is important we get it right. Building up a future generation of leaders and thinkers is what will bring about global change. And it starts from our forgotten or neglected children.

Our Open a school project is based on the belief that developing good, effective literacy and numeracy skills through quality education is fundamental to improving life and essential to achieving social equity and equality. If we want a fair society, we need to start from the foundations and work our way up.

Children often fail to enrol in schools because of the long distance they have to travel to from home. And when they get there, they are often in poor or dangerous conditions, lacking basic facilities such as classrooms, boundary walls, latrines and water facilities. It’s difficult to fathom sending your own children to a school like this, so we couldn’t allow this for orphans and vulnerable children in our care.

31% of rural children across Pakistan are out-of-school (Education inequality index, Pakistan: 2018). 56% of adolescents from rural areas are out-of-school. However, even for those who are in school, learning is not guaranteed, as the quality of education is poor. Up to a third of those who enrol drop out by Grade 2. Teachers are poorly trained and lack the support needed to do their work properly. As a result, parents and children see little value in investing time and money into poor quality education when their focus is on survival.