Iqra Community learning centre

Mohammed Hasan, a bright young boy who wants to study, learn English and break the cycle of generational poverty had to drop out of school in 2020, right after the pandemic hit. His father lost his job and there weren’t enough funds for him to continue going to school. This year, after 2 years of no learning, Hasan struggles to find the school he can rejoin. Education for him is a question of privilege, should it be? Shouldn’t it be the basic right? Should the truth of the current situation be the reason he gives up on his hope of a better future? The bigger problem here is - How do we fuel hope for Hasan, Aamir and 15 crore other out-of-school students? Policy interventions to solve this challenge is still a distant dream. Education always had persistent issues such as access, continuity, learning gaps, among other issues which exacerbate dropouts; the pandemic has added newer challenges and amplified a few others.

We, the IQRA school, have seen similar challenges emerging in our Shah-e-Alam community.    

90 students have not returned to school post pandemic. Unimaginable learning loss in terms of reading level and basic numeracy for grade 1 to 4 students.

Towards the same, we want to provide space and opportunity to our students to overcome these learning barriers by providing them with aided support that could help them to move faster on the ladder of academic success. To facilitate this, the IQRA school is opening up an IQRA community centre. The community centre will run two programs:

The Solution

Multiple research has suggested focusing on : 

1: Additional Learning hours  

2: Integrated SEL (social-emotional learning)  

3: Level-wise buckets of students (small group focus) 

Towards the same, We want to provide space and opportunity to our students to overcome these learning barriers by providing them with aided support that could help them to move faster on the ladder of academic success. To facilitate this, the IQRA school is opening up an IQRA community centre. The community centre will run two programs.

This is going to be the first-ever community centre in the Sah-e-Alam area which aims to impact 70-100 students at the beginning of the year and would eventually expand to cater to more than 150 students in the next 1 year. The centre would be launched on the school campus to increase its accessibility for students and for effective management of resources. This centre would become a hub for learning of students from and outside the school and would aim to influence the non-schooling students and their parents in a systematic way.