In September 2009, Oxfam GB and its partner, Idara e Taleem o Agahi, led the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) in a protest near the national Parliament, highlighting their reservations on the new Education Policy. This was the 10th policy document on education adopted by the government and the Pakistan Coalition for Education, a forum of 130 civil society organisations working in the education sector, demanded that some critical aspects of the policy be revised which are non conducive for the provision of the quality education by the public sector. Earlier, ITA developed a brief highlighting some of the critical aspects of policy which was taken up by the Pakistan Coalition for Education.
In TV interviews and press statements issued simultaneously, the Coalition highlighted that the new policy does not address education as a right, particularly for girls, that the misplaced prioritisation of religious education in the policy would only lead to further extremism and sectarianism in the country and that the mainstreaming of madrassas should be carried out effectively under the Ministry of Education (for details see policy critique available at http://itacec.org/national_education_policy_09.html).
