Sabaq Centres

The proposed Sustainable Development Goal – 4 is related to education and aims to address the provision of universal primary education by reaching out to out-of-school children and focus on quality of education. Under this banner, the Department of International Development (DFID), is helming Ilm Ideas 2, an initiative to help advance the status of education in Pakistan by seeking to improve educational outcomes of at least 250,000 children and establishing a self-sustaining community, while continuing to identify and invest in educational innovation. SABAQ was identified as one of the benefactors of this programme, with Ilm Ideas 2 investing approximately over GBP 2 million spread out over three years, based on the following competencies:

A strong organization with leadership committed to developing and taking solution to scale.

Sound plans for achieving financial sustainability.

Clear line of sight between problem and solution, and potential to impact learning outcomes.

SABAQ is working with the National Rural Support Program to implement its digital learning content in 500 SABAQ Centres that cater exclusively to out-of-school children in the Mirpurkhas, Tando Allah Yar and Tando Muhammed Khan regions. The SABAQ sessions are carried out by a Facilitator that has been trained (and receives refresher trainings) on how to conduct lessons and a model of peer-learning is encouraged in which a meraSABAQ tablet is shared among a group of children. Through rigorous tablet based assessment and monitoring, this intervention aims to provide high-quality education access to 20,000+ out of school youth. Sustainability of SABAQ as an independent organization with a sufficient revenue stream is also a project target.