READ Foundation Pakistan

Education is the biggest challenge being faced by Pakistan. There are more then 25 million kids who are out of schools and cannot avail their constitutional right for having an education. Combine that with a youth bulge in population, increasing unemployment and ideological radicalization and it spells out disaster in the near future of the nation.Various not-for-profit organizations have stepped up to help Pakistan avert the education emergency that is currently imposed in the country (http://educationemergency.com.pk/).

READ Foundation Pakistan, is also such a not-for-profit donor funded organization, providing low cost education to over 75,000 children from under-served communities of Pakistan in 340 institutions (readfoundation.org). It is one of the biggest education networks in the country and the second largest operating in the humanitarian sector. To modernize operations and make the quality education of global standards available to our students, READ has recently designed and deployed a custom built technology solution for its education network. This system allows READ to gather and utilize information from our various institutions and students on a single platform.

The system enables education planners to analyze data from schools and produce various reports necessary for planning and rolling out education programs. The system also allows education managers to review school progress on quality indicators for maintaining a pre-set criteria of quality education. The system enables scheduling and collaboration of field teams for conducting quality audits or roll-out exercises in schools.

The system also enables READ to collect donations from various touch points (website, field offices, campaigns) and link the donations directly with un-sponsored children or under-funded programs to allow a transparent flow of funds between donors and beneficiaries. A smart phone extension of the system is also under development, which will allow even better collaboration with field teams and enable data collection in the field.

READ Foundation is leading the charge among not-for-profit organizations and education networks to technologically enable the organization so that we can meet the demands of quality education for all in the future. Our efforts are bearing fruit and we hope to help other organizations reach the same goals, by the lessons we have learned throughout this journey.