Adil Najam
This intriguing picture from Islamabad advertises a “Child Friendly School”?
Leaves one wondering about exactly what a “child friendly school” is? Maybe our readers can tell us what that would mean in Pakistan.
By implication, it suggests that other schools are not “child friendly.” That may well be so. After all, we have written before about schools that had 25 teachers and only 52 students!
In fairness, this seems to be the name of the school itself. In which case this may be a case of Pinglish. If that is so, one would have to wonder whether the school is “education friendly,” irrespective of whether it is “child friendly” or not.
http://www.unicef.org/lifeskills/index_7260.html
for more info
Child friendly is used in the way we use ” user friendly ” …..
would like to know more about CFS
Child Friendly means that all the teachers are female. Plus, they are all pretty gorgeous.
There’s a specific definition of Child-Friendly Schooling that is used by the government and international agencies such as UNICEF. I wouldn’t swear that the school in this photograph qualifies any more than the Little Harvard Flowers School in Lahore, but the concept does exist and has a meaning.
The UNICEF Pakistan website has a photo-essay which shows some of the criteria for child-friendly schooling:
http://www.unicef.org/pakistan/index.html
There is also a recently published booklet about the concept as piloted in Punjab which can probably be obtained from UNICEF in Islamabad or Lahore.
(Disclaimer: I was involved in preparing the booklet)
Tav