Introduction

]Taaleem Foundation is a non-profit and non-governmental community support organization, registered in Balochistan (Pakistan) since 1993. During the years, Taaleem Foundation has established eight (8) schools in tribal and remotest areas of Balochistan which includes: Kohlu, Loralai, Killa Saifullah, Muslim Bagh, Zhob, Pishin, Mastung and Sui (Dera Bugti). Taaleem Foundation has also established a training center to cater vocational training and higher education in Sui to promote economic empowerment among females.

Quality schooling, modern curriculum, co-education and all-female faculty are few of the success factors of this schooling system.

Taaleem Foundation strives to educate a social change through quality education in the under privileged areas of Pakistan, especially Balochistan. It promotes educational and research activities by establishing high quality schools and learning centers; and encouraging female participation in mainstream education in the tribal areas. Gender awareness, participatory & consultative culture, public-private partnership and self-sustenance are the hallmarks of this organization.

Taaleem Foundation’s Grammar School System, an initiative in mainstream education, has stirred the tribal society as an activist institutional local change agent for engineering social change, creatively. It has mobilized the concerned communities for collective thinking, with a view to achieve a self-supportive, self-contained and self-reliant growth model for integrated community development. The model has stood the test of time in the communities served by the Taaleem Foundation.

The school management bodies – called ‘School Syndicate’, independently manage the school affairs, in accordance with the policy guidelines provided by Taaleem Foundation’s Board of Directors. The schools are mainly financed through tuition payments, charitable contributions and endowment revenue; and receive little, if any, government funding.

The passion and the positive energy flow from all tiers of management, has helped the active role players to push the people towards a sustainable lifestyle. Over a thousand students of our school system are pursuing higher studies in the fields of business management, arts, medical sciences, engineering, agriculture and teaching, through TF’s Sponsorship Program and on self- finance basis. TF has successfully sowed the seeds in order to grow a futuristic vision, which has instilled values such as tolerance, patience and most importantly made the society open to social change.

In all these efforts, the core feature, which has helped in achieving the above-mentioned goals, has been community participation. TF is a unique model of an ideal private-public partnership. The presence of TF has helped in fostering better relationships between the community and the incumbent local administration.

Today TF observes an increase of self-reliance awareness in the community, which has created qualities of initiating a good cause and driving it to success later on. Taaleem Foundation in collaboration with the community and the government has been able to achieve marvelous results. The organization is generating its own revenues and successfully pays for its operational costs.