![[Pakistan] Teachers inputing feeding data into the new satellite system. [Date picture taken: 12/2006]](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/200612133.jpg.webp?itok=98-XDElA "Teachers input data into the new satellite monitoring system")
A unique satellite-based monitoring system has been installed in 15 Pakistani educational institutions in order to improve information gathering in a school feeding project.
“The system permits authorised and trained schoolteachers to directly input monthly data pertinent to their school, which will then be transmitted via the ARGOS global satellite system to WFP [World Food Programme] and other authorised officials for analysis,” WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal said in Jauharabad in Punjab province, 170 km southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
“It [the ARGOS system] is a kind of additional monitoring tool to increase WFP’s capacity to monitor school feeding programmes effectively and accurately,” Jamal added.
Across Pakistan, some 315,000 female students in over 3,000 state-run girls’ primary schools annually benefit from WFP’s Assistance to Girls’ Primary Education Programme. The US $80 million project, which started in 2005, will run until the end of 2009.
WFP’s school feeding programme targets remote rural parts of the country where poverty leads to low female enrolment. These include seven districts in Punjab province, five in Sindh, nine in Balochistan, seven in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and two in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
During the nine-month school year, girls receive one 4-litre tin [equals to some $5) of cooking oil every month, provided they attend school for a minimum of 20 days. Schoolteachers receive the same tin for a minimum of 22 days’ monthly attendance.
To date, a monthly monitoring report has been compiled through manual documentation, which takes about three to four weeks to reach officials at WFP’s central office in Islamabad.
The new ARGOS system is designed to permit the input and transmission of basic monitoring information about school attendance, enrolment, commodity counts and ration size through a simple keypad device installed in WFP-assisted schools.
“The system is being used to enter responses to pre-programmed questions and the device can only transmit information entered from the school,” WFP’s field monitor, Salma Yaqub, said.
In the six years since WFP started the school feeding programme there has been a 100 percent increase in female enrolment in schools, according to officials working with project.
“From an original 1,838 girl students in 2001, today we have some 3,666 pupils in schools participating in this feeding programme,” said Rana Munir Azam, project director of WFP’s girls’ primary education assistance programme in Punjab.
“This programme has helped in raising the social status of female child in our rural communities. Now, the families know that this girl will bring a tin of cooking oil by attending a school. In poverty-stricken backward areas, a tin of oil every month means a lot,” Azam maintained.
The ARGOS monitoring system, installed in 15 schools in Khushab district out of a total 50 participating in WFPs’ feeding programme, is expected to lessen reliance on data collection staff and improve accuracy and frequency.
With the help of this system, WFP can effectively assess local conditions and make better management decisions, field monitor Yaqub said. This system will also allow greater transparency for donors, implementing partners and recipients alike.
At present, the UN’s food agency has implemented the use of the ARGOS Monitoring System in Africa, the Middle East, Central America and South Asia.
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“The system permits authorised and trained schoolteachers to directly input monthly data pertinent to their school, which will then be transmitted via the ARGOS global satellite system to WFP [World Food Programme] and other authorised officials for analysis,” WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal said in Jauharabad in Punjab province, 170 km southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
“It [the ARGOS system] is a kind of additional monitoring tool to increase WFP’s capacity to monitor school feeding programmes effectively and accurately,” Jamal added.
Across Pakistan, some 315,000 female students in over 3,000 state-run girls’ primary schools annually benefit from WFP’s Assistance to Girls’ Primary Education Programme. The US $80 million project, which started in 2005, will run until the end of 2009.
WFP’s school feeding programme targets remote rural parts of the country where poverty leads to low female enrolment. These include seven districts in Punjab province, five in Sindh, nine in Balochistan, seven in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and two in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
During the nine-month school year, girls receive one 4-litre tin [equals to some $5) of cooking oil every month, provided they attend school for a minimum of 20 days. Schoolteachers receive the same tin for a minimum of 22 days’ monthly attendance.
To date, a monthly monitoring report has been compiled through manual documentation, which takes about three to four weeks to reach officials at WFP’s central office in Islamabad.
The new ARGOS system is designed to permit the input and transmission of basic monitoring information about school attendance, enrolment, commodity counts and ration size through a simple keypad device installed in WFP-assisted schools.
“The system is being used to enter responses to pre-programmed questions and the device can only transmit information entered from the school,” WFP’s field monitor, Salma Yaqub, said.
In the six years since WFP started the school feeding programme there has been a 100 percent increase in female enrolment in schools, according to officials working with project.
“From an original 1,838 girl students in 2001, today we have some 3,666 pupils in schools participating in this feeding programme,” said Rana Munir Azam, project director of WFP’s girls’ primary education assistance programme in Punjab.
“This programme has helped in raising the social status of female child in our rural communities. Now, the families know that this girl will bring a tin of cooking oil by attending a school. In poverty-stricken backward areas, a tin of oil every month means a lot,” Azam maintained.
The ARGOS monitoring system, installed in 15 schools in Khushab district out of a total 50 participating in WFPs’ feeding programme, is expected to lessen reliance on data collection staff and improve accuracy and frequency.
With the help of this system, WFP can effectively assess local conditions and make better management decisions, field monitor Yaqub said. This system will also allow greater transparency for donors, implementing partners and recipients alike.
At present, the UN’s food agency has implemented the use of the ARGOS Monitoring System in Africa, the Middle East, Central America and South Asia.
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