Mansehra Valley

They found the education available in Mansehra to be  extremely poor. Parents were facing an uphill battle in preparing their children for the future. Schools were overcrowded, teachers were absent and teaching methods out-dated..

They were told that the greatest constraint to Mansehra’s development and the root cause of poverty were illiteracy and poor education. Typically, learning is by memorization and discipline with little understanding of the basic concepts. The product is a child who is dependant, uncreative and afraid to question the status quo. The challenge was to introduce modern methods of teaching – activity based learning – in a society where teachers and parents had been taught only by rote memorization.
Agahi’s first school was in Mari Khan Khel, a village 20 minutes from Mansehra town. A chicken coop had been offered by the local landlord. The parents rehabilitated, cleaned and opened it as a classroom for Agahi’s first intake of 23 children. Seeing success, other villages joined in: Buffa-Mera, Laberkot, Lambi-Dheri and Safaida. Later, after the earthquake in 2005, two more schools were added: Mazullah and Maidan.

Agahi has built six schools and rented three.  Apart from the teacher training centre and commercial school in Mansehra town all are rural. Two of the schools it built are now fully supported by DIL, a NGO based in USA. In the five Agahi supported  schools there are  some 860 students up to Grade 9, taught by  50 teachers.

Agahi’s schools are managed by their parent’s organizations. Parents pay fees (some $3 per child per month) which pays for teachers’ salaries and school overhead costs, thereby ensuring the sustainability of their schools.

Teacher training and mentoring is financed by the surplus from Agahi’s commercial school (the Kohsaar Academy) which is run on a non-profit basis.  In addition, funds raised by Agahi Canada pay for the teacher training centre, classroom furniture, books and scholarships.

Learning is activity based in a positive environment, which emphasizes understanding of concepts rather than memorization. The child learns to question and solve problems rather than regurgitating facts memorized by rote.

All teachers are women drawn from the communities in which they teach. They get formal training during their vacations. During school terms, they are monitored and mentored  in their classrooms by Agahi’s mentors.

Laberkot's First Students (1998)

Agahi created its Teacher Training Centre with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Canadian Bureau of Education (CBIE), and the Institute of Educational Development, Karachi (IED).  Support for school construction came from Mr. Kahlid Usman, his group of Toronto supporters and from Developments in Literacy (DIL) a US based foundation for education.

Teachers Learning Activity-based Teaching