As part of the strategic sideline meetings with government stakeholders, the CRSS-WPSO track II Beyond Boundaries project’s Pakistan Afghanistan Joint Committee (PAJC) members from both the countries met with the Minister for Education, Government of Sindh, Mr. Jam Mehtab Dahar, at the Sindh Secretariat, on January 09, 2017.
The Pakistani side comprised Ms. Shazia Marri, Member of Parliament; Dr. Shoaib Suddle, former IG Police and Federal Tax Ombudsman; Qazi Humayun, former Ambassador; Mian Sanaullah, former Ambassador; Lt. Gen. (retd) Asif Yasin, former Defense Secretary; and Tahir Khan, senior journalist. The Afghanistan side included Mr. Khalid Pashtoon, Member of Parliament; Ms. Elay Ershad, Member of Parliament; Mr. Mozammil Shinwari, former Deputy Minister for Trade & Commerce; Ms. Wazhma Frogh, Advisor to defense Ministry; and Ms. Asila Wardak, former diplomat with Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Anne Wilkens, former ambassador of Sweden to Pakistan and Afghanistan, international regional expert, also accompanied the two groups and CRSS.
Ms. Shazia Marri, from the Pakistan side, introduced the two groups and gave a brief rundown of the project Beyond Boundaries and the project activities since the first phase which had started in November, 2015, and now is in the second phase, with third meeting of the PAJC groups held in Karachi. She explained that the two PAJC groups are exploring possibilities of cooperation in the fields of education, sports, trade, and arts and culture. She noted that PAJC may be small in number but aims to achieve big. She further said: “we as neighbors have to co-exist and hence need better bilateral relations. The idea of all of us being here in Karachi is to get everybody together and explore people to people contact to work together for positive measures”.
Minister Dahar welcomed the two delegations and while appreciating that such track II initiatives are very important to improve the relations at people to people level, said: “ I am thankful to the two civil society organizations for taking such initiative to improve bilateral relations between the two countries”. He noted that the two countries should explore the areas of cooperation to improve their bilateral relations, since working together is need of the hour for both the countries. He shared with the Afghan delegates the initiatives taken by his ministry to improve the provincial education system, especially the monitoring and biometric system to track the attendance of students, teachers and other affairs of the schools. This endeavor has been quite instrumental in improving the attendance of students and teachers. The monitoring measures have complemented the teachers training program and increased the capacity of teachers which was direly needed. This also compels the teachers to get results. Through the capacity building measures, we aim to equip the teachers with the modern techniques of imparting knowledge into the future leaders. The department also needs the support of civil society in curbing the evils in the system of education. In response to the PAJC policy recommendations for education shared with the minister, he promised to take up these demands/ proposals with the concerned provincial authorities and provide maximum possible support.
The Afghan members said that these initiatives shared with them were inspiring examples for them to replicate in Afghanistan.
Mr. Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director, CRSS, said the idea behind the strategic meetings with the stakeholders, on the sidelines of PAJC workshops is to move from talk to walk. He seconded the minister on the effectiveness of biometric system; sharing that the system has also helped the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to improve the schools performance and increase the attendance of teachers and students.
Mr. Mozzammil Shinwari, while speaking from the Afghan delegation said: “the Beyond Boundaries has been quite efficacious to discuss the issues of bilateral concerns. The issue of refugees should also be solved, and cooperation in the field of education should improve through more scholarships for Afghan students by the Sindh Government”. He informed the Minister that the two groups will be meeting with business community here and different chambers of commerce and industry to explore possibilities of improving bilateral and transit trade.
Mr. Humayun from the Pakistan delegation remarked that Karachi has a great significance for the flow of goods and route to Afghanistan, because of Afghan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), Afghanistan has stakes in Karachi because of the huge transit trade flow through Karachi.
Ms. Marri said that although security is one of the core issues that the PAJC wants to discuss, the group is also discussing several other issues with likelihood of success, thus the recommendations for cooperation in the field of education have also been put together. She handed over the policy recommendations from the PAJC meeting held in Karachi to the Minister.
Mr. Khalid Pashtoon told the Minister that we have had successful meetings; we want to expand it to people to people contact, especially education. Beyond Boundaries has been very successful; we feel we have achieved a lot in this short time.
Lt. Gen. (retd) Asif Yasin suggested that for the teachers training program, there should be Training of Trainers.
The discussions were followed by a presentation on Biometric and Monitoring System. It was shared with the delegation that the Sindh education department is using an advanced tracking system to track the attendance of teachers and other staff and also monitors the condition of schools’ infrastructure. There is a leave management system, certain regulations for and categories of absconders and thousands of teachers have been punished based on the data generated by this system.
