The Government of Pakistan in its efforts to ensure the care of and healthy development of young children has allotted this responsibility to two sectors. For non-educational programs the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Welfare are responsible and the Ministry of Education is responsible for undertaking efforts to ensure education for all.

Government efforts for the promotion of ECD are cast within the Ministry of Education's programs to achieve Education for All, and are being promoted within the framework of the Education Sector Reforms. For non-education programs in ECD, children in the 0-3 age group are dealt with within the Ministry of Health interventions, particularly through immunization and other programs, as well as through efforts of the Ministry of Social Welfare that undertakes interventions to advocate the rights of children. To strengthen ECE, the Ministry of Education and the provincial departments of education have traditionally focused on the katchi (pre-1) class context that includes the 3-5 year old age group, although interest is now emerging to focus on interventions for children outside of the classroom - such as through community based programming.

The concept and understanding of early childhood education has been largely confined to the katchi class. Although the Government recently embarked on the policy to "formalize" katchi and introduce an ECE curriculum starting from the 2002 school year, in practice, katchi class has existed since the beginning of the public school system in Pakistan. Traditionally, the "informal" katchi class the has existed has catered to children as young as 3 and 4 of age, but also has been used by the primary school teachers to place children of 5 or 6 years of age that appear to not be ready for a Class 1 curriculum. As a result, in most cases, one would find children from ages 3 all the way up to 5 or 6 in a typical katchi class.

The Government policy to "formalize" katchi emerged in response to the overwhelming existence of pre-primary school aged children in schools, and is a result of the recognition by the public sector of the high demand for early learning. www.moe.gov.pk

National ECE Curriculum

The Bureau of Curriculum of the Ministry of Education has taken the lead in introducing the National curriculum for ECE in the nation's katchi classes. After the development of the curriculum with technical input from the Teachers' Resource Centre in 2002, the Government has developed teacher training material and guides for katchi teachers, and is in the process of facilitating the introduction of the curriculum in schools, including with NGO technical support (such as through RCC, with TRC's continued input). While the Government is challenged with resource shortages (particularly of teachers and classroom space), the MOE has started to implement ECE programs in the Islamabad Capital Territory to experiment with interventions that could provide lessons to the larger provincial programs. Attachments include: Curriculum for ECE 2002 English and Urdu Curriculum for ECE 2007 English and Urdu

Implementation of ECE at the Federal Level

The Ministry, through its implementation arm - the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) - is implementing these initiatives in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), using three approaches or programs. The first is the ESR Project supported by Government funding to strengthen the katchi class through provision of one classroom in each school for katchi, appointment of a contract-based katchi teacher, provision of an ayah, learning materials, development of syllabi and guides, and targeted AEO supervision. These interventions are being supported by the FDE in 100 regular ICT schools. Additionally, 150 schools are implementing similar interventions through their own funding sources (either community-generated or school (tuition) funds). The second stream of ECE in ICT is the UNICEF supported Child Friendly Schools Program that is being implemented in 30 schools in ICT, with a focus on school improvement for Classes 1-5 using an approach closely related to ECE Practices. The third approach is being implemented through the support of Children's Resources International, a USAID funded NGO that is implementing ECD in 35 schools in ICT. The Federal Directorate of Education is in the process of building its own capacity to plan and implement ECE programs. It has developed a cadre of 28 Master Trainers who have been trained using FDE's own technical and financial resources. FDE aims to demonstrate effective approaches to ECE by testing interventions in rural and urban schools in ICT, and hopes to provide lessons for replication of such programs at the provincial level. Efforts to develop ECD programs are growing in the provinces. In addition to the implementation of the katchi curriculum, provinces are beginning to slowly invest their own resources for developing other ECE programs.

Efforts at the Provincial Level

Sindh
The Sindh Education Department has included funding for initiating an ECD program in schools from April 2004 that will focus on improving katchi class in 1200 schools (initially those schools in which basic facilities are already available).

Punjab
Similarly the Punjab Government Literacy and Non Formal Education Department is also including a budget to focus on katchi class improvement, while public-private partnership programs of the Department of Education are supporting NGOs that are working in ECE.

NWFP
The NWFP Government has recently launched a Provincial Coordination Committee to oversee the promotion of ECE in the province. The Balochistan Government is also exploring ways to improve the katchi class syllabus that it had developed prior to the launch of the National Curriculum to align it with the Ministry's guidelines to make it more child-friendly.

Challenges

The Ministry of Education, although committed to the promotion of early childhood, has recognized many challenges, some of which include:

. A shortage of resources, particularly teachers and classrooms, for early childhood education.

. Low levels of awareness for early childhood education within the education sector priorities in the provinces.

. Capacity gaps for planning and implementing effective program for early childhood development at the district and local level.

. Weak coordination among key line ministries, such as Education, Health and Social Welfare, for the development of a robust early childhood development program. The Ministry of Education is actively seeking cooperation of partners including NGOs and donors to overcome these challenges.