On a warm Monday afternoon, the Minister of IT for Sindh, Taimur Talpur, along with his Honorary Advisor, Zainulabedin Shah, visited the Al-Murtaza School in PECHS to learn more about the technology-based education solution that the school had deployed for the past year. The Minister’s school visit was facilitated by the Honorary Advisor, who manages the innovation portfolio for the IT ministry. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Shah said, “the Sindh government welcomes innovation and is continuously seeking to drive closer collaboration between private entrepreneurs, start-ups and the provincial government.”

Knowledge Platform, a Pakistani learning solutions company has partnered with Al-Murtaza and 350+ more schools around the country where it has deployed its blended learning solution, Learn Smart Classroom. This model has already been successfully deployed in the nation’s capital, Islamabad, where 28,000 public schools’ girls from all 75 public schools in the district benefit from this solution every day. After 1 year of using the solution in class, students witnessed an improvement in learning outcomes of approximately 60%. The blended learning program, popularly known as the “Jazz Smart Schools” program is a combined initiative of Jazz, The Federal Directorate of Education & Knowledge Platform. Speaking on the occasion, the Director of Marketing and Business Development for Knowledge Platform, Zaigham Hidayatullah noted that “It is great to see a new cadre of leaders in Sindh who are driving innovative ideas to combat the province’s challenges.”

After personally observing how the solution is used by students and teachers at the Al-Murtaza School, the Minister then had a detailed discussion with the school’s senior management, which included the Secretary-General of the school’s Board of Directors, Imran Gheewala, as well as senior members of the Knowledge Platform team. The Minister showed a keen interest in leveraging such solutions to benefit the public-school going children of Sindh. “Sindh has led the field in building a strong Public-Private Partnership Framework. We look forward to understanding how we can build upon similar partnerships to build the capacity of both Pakistani private enterprises, as well as improve the quality of education for our province’s future leaders” said Minister Talpur.