Participatory Online Home learning Alternatives(POHA) is a program designed by Elementary &
Secondary Education
Foundation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, specially to focus ‘out of school children’ and potential
‘passed outs’ who are normally
dropped out after grade 5th. The idea was conceived, presented and supervised by Mr.
Zarifulmaani (MD ESEF). His team
includes Mr. Noor Sher, Said Zada (EMIS ESEF) ,Mr. Israr(HOPE), Mr. Mian
Jawad Ahmad Founder
& CEO of Encoder
Bytes & his team ,Dr
Riaz (ESEF),Habib(DP ESEF) and
others who contributed wholeheartedly to this initiative. ESEF manages non formal education
sector in the province and
running more than 4000 girls community schools. Apart from it, there are ESEF schools run by
private partners under NSI
and ESS programs. ESEF is trying cater for the ‘pass out’ students of girl’s community
schools in the 6th grades through
NSI or ESS but it is not possible to physically reach all ‘passed out’ 6th grade students
,therefore ESEF has come up
with the ‘out of box solution’ which is called POHA.
POHA Lab, an innovative concept born from ESEF, has become a reality under the leadership of
Mian
Jawad Ahmad the
esteemed Founder and CEO of Encoder
Bytes Pvt Ltd and his team. Representing a new era in
technological advancement,
POHA Lab. The Experiments & Simulations has been designed, & developed by Encoder Bytes,
along with simulations Encoder
Bytes also developed website of POHA Lab including UI/UX Designing, Back End & Front End
Development. Encoder Bytes is
one of the leading tech industry tirelessly revolutionizing various domains on a global
scale.
The 'learning-enabled assessment' through Poha E-lab facilitates in the assessment of; the procedural and manipulative skills of the experiment, the concepts and understanding of the experiment and a student's reporting and interpreting skills.
POHA is in initiative which provides online as well as offline support through Education
Learning Management System
(ELMS) which is also designed by team of ESEF containing online digital material, assessment
mechanism, online tutor
support, profile record of each student, certification etc. There are 300 POHA clusters
notified by ESEF in the province
to facilitate catchment area students through offline support. The focal school teachers are
trained on the system and
the concept of Taleemi Razakars is introduced to work through Village Education Committee to
reach out registered
students. To facilitate students who are registered in POHA, videos containing lessons are
also made available. For this
purpose, an education studio is also established at the head office of ESEF.
To facilitate science students of 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade, a unique project is
undertaken which is called POHA
simulation science lab. It includes videos of ‘experiments’/ practical, of grade 9th and
10th. Normally students do not
have proper science Lab facilities. Every science subject has a practical viva voce but
everybody knows that it is now a
formality only. Reasons are; less budget for science Labs and equipment, no facility of Lab
at average private school,
and lack of interest and time scarcity on the part of students. In POHA system, now there is
virtual science lab where a
student can actually get feeling of ‘doing’, using and practicing science equipment.
Stepwise instructions, Videos of
every procedure, questions/answers and theory is available to students in such a way that
the learner can easily operate
personally. It is it is interesting to mention that normally a science lab in a government
school costs six million and
number of schools where science lab is required in the government sector is more than 3000
while in private sector,
schools which need science lab are more than 3000. It means that we need 6000 science labs
for the students of 9th and
10th class immediately which is going to cost at least 36 billion……seems not feasible to be
allocated in near future.
Therefore, ESEF’s POHA virtual science lab is getting popular to facilitate all the science
students across the province
free of cost.
Dear Education managers, teachers,parents,private school owners, and students, please use
this facility and try to get
as much benefit as you can get but plz give positive feed back so that we may improve it
further. It is just a beginning
and there might be lots of deficiencies and mistakes but it is an effort indigenously by
ESEF. All rights reserved with
ESEF and any financial gains will be used for education of deserving students.