Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
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Policies and Select Examples of Programmes
Poverty: Demand-side Policy Examples
Province and district level initiatives
The Sindh Education Reform Programme (SERP) has set up such a stipend. With an average
family size of up to 7 or 8 and a third of the population living on less than $1 a day, these small
stipends and free textbooks can make the difference between daughters being sent to school or
having to drop out. In Sindh, the stipend is offered to more than 400,000 girls studying in classes
6 through 10, and is designed to address gender disparity in educational attainment in Sindh.
With timeliness being critical to the girls’ stipend disbursement, the Government of Sindh
explored several methods of disbursements, through ATM cards, pin mailers, SMS and other
types of mobile payments. As such, it awarded contracts to Easypaisa545 (2014) for mobile
payments of the stipends, with Easypaisa providing a comprehensive daily report on the status
of their disbursements, thus making it easier for the Government to manage their records. The
Government also partnered with Jazz mobile network.546 In particular they used the JazzCash
biometric verified money transfer, which ensures the stipend reaches the right family. Under
this method of disbursement, a Jazz number or mobile is not even required. Customers give their
fingerprints, linked to their Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC), and can send or
receive money from any JazzCash Agent across Pakistan instantaneously547 .
A similar project is being run under Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme (PESRP). The
Government of Punjab offers cash stipends to girls of grades (6-10)548 who attend government
schools in the selected districts with the objective of improving enrolment, increasing retention,
and reducing gender disparities. Annually, the programme is distributing stipends to over
400,000 girls enrolled in grades 6-10 in government schools in Punjab. The beneficiary girls are
given a small stipend per year, in four equal quarterly payments subject to the condition of 80%
attendance rate during the period. The stipend programme is being administered through
district education administrations. Various pilots in terms of additional stipends and
disbursement methods are ongoing, including the branchless banking pilot project which aims
to switch the delivery mechanism away from post offices to branchless banking.
The elementary and secondary education department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has been
running the stipend programme since 2006. In KP, more than 1 million children have had their
education interrupted549 , either due to forced displacements or schools being used as shelters.
Despite these circumstances, the enrolment of girls in primary schools has increased in recent
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Mobile-Money-in-Pakistan.pdf
546 Jazz was formerly known as MobiLink, however in November 2015, it announced a merger with WaridTel Pakistan, both
companies re-launched under the 'Jazz' brand name. Both merged companies now collectively server 50 million subscribers
in Pakistan.
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