Islamabad, Dec 22. Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal has said

that Pakistan has launched a number of projects to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education.

Addressing the 5th ministerial review meeting of education ministers being held in Cairo, Zobaida Jalal said the meeting has rightly and timely focused on the first goal of the Education for All (EFA) Declaration. She said the Pakistan government is making efforts towards the commitment to provide education to every child and developing and evolving fairly significant potential.

Zobaida said the initiatives undertaken in partnership with the government schools and NGOs would enable the government to assess the effectiveness of its national programme, specifically emphasizing early

 childhood education and care. She said that Ministry of Education has been supporting programmes on the ground and data was being gathered, which could be used to refine future policies and programmes.

The minister for education spoke of the challenges before the government and the civil society to contribute to the knowledge base through research and carefully monitored innovative programmes. "Based on the notion of partnership between public and private sectors, including the starting point of community and family involvement, these models offer an approach that highlights and builds our new policy in this area," she said.

Zobaida thanked the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its partners for convening this important meeting and expressed the hope for continuing this dialogue with important follow-up for the benefit of all the participating countries. Earlier, Egyptian First Lady Mrs. Suzane Mubarak inaugurated the three-day moot being attended by the education ministers from the group of nine high population countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan, with the active support from UNESCO.-APP