It is an educational project that pushes us to think about the importance of the provision of education to all the children, and to put in the efforts to provide it to the underprivileged children who cannot even afford to buy the shoes to wear!
Yes it is a social start-up and does not focus on earning money, but the cause that it is serving holds great significance especially in our country where almost 25 million children are out of school!
An idea that turned into a dream– a dream of giving
access to education among the most underprivileged class of our country.
The mission of the Tent School is “education for all”, and their core purpose is to impart quality education to the underprivileged children, focused on enhancing their thinking capability and problem solving skills. It discourages the culture of rote learning, as followed in many schools in Pakistan, and focuses on encouraging the students to question more and think out of the box.
The basic inspiration of the school’s founder, Zulqarnain Jameel was to do something for such students who are not considered as bright students according to the grading systems in school and are tagged as ‘incompetent’, based on their grades.
‘I was always a low achiever in school myself, but I strongly believe that everybody has their own skill-set that is different from others and they can achieve a lot in their lives, if they are guided in the right direction and encouraged to excel.’ –Zulqarnain Jameel
The Tent School started in 2014, when Zulqarnain realized that he should do something to educate the children belonging to the slum areas in Islamabad. These children who have equally creative and intuitive minds, are deprived of even the basic education, just because they cannot afford to pay their school fees.
Zulqarnain had to leave his job to pursue his vision and started the school with 2 Tablet PCs, a laptop, and some volunteer teachers. This mission of educating these children got even stronger after seeing the motivation and drive of these children, who were keen to learn and know.
‘One of the students completed the grade 2 mathematics curriculum within 2 months. Such results motivated me to keep working’, says Zulqarnain.
Zulqarnain turned his dream of educating the children of the slum areas of Islamabad into reality only on the basis of utter dedication and devotion. The school was demolished twice, but he did not give up and started the school again in 2018, in a room big space. It was very difficult and challenging to start the journey again, but Zulqarnain’s passion and commitment encouraged him to keep going and today he has over 90 students who are getting free education in the Tent School.
‘All of the students are very motivated to continue their educational journey and they come to school every day upon their wish and desire’, says Zulqarnain.
These students, belonging to the most underprivileged segment of the society, can prove to be far more productive for the society than the privileged and wealthy class, only if they are given the right direction and guidance.
‘We plan to have at least three more centers for the Tent School, by the end of 2019’, says Zulqarnain.
The Tent School is the perfect example of
never giving up, no matter how
many hurdles you face or how many times you fall.
Just keep the journey going!