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Ali Moeen Nawazish

“Educational projects must be managed better” 

Everyone knows about the Pakistani wonder-kid Ali Moeen Nawazish, the first student in the world to achieve 23 straight As in A-level examination with highest marks in 22 subjects, earning himself a place in the Guinness book of world records.
Nawazish has also received several awards, including the coveted ‘Pride of Performance’, for his achievement which was extensively reported in leading newspapers and TV as well as global media.
Now he is working on a project, stepUP Pakistan, an inspiring idea to educate the illiterate masses. Here, Nawazish discusses how he came up with this idea and how it works.
What stimulated you to work on stepUP Pakistan project and what is it supposed to achieve?
I was overwhelmed by the immense love and appreciation I received from everyone and I think it was a lot more than I deserved. I wanted to give something back. So I thought of the stepUP Pakistan idea. It is a platform to take the country to the next level in education through lectures, seminars, conferences and e-learning methods.
In this regard, I owe much to my Urdu teacher, Asif Rashid, who was born with a degenerative nerve disease, and yet has the will and the drive to teach. He was kind enough to help us with our lecture project for Urdu and in getting it started when many other people had declined to help.
How does your programme work?
We promote online learning by providing free lectures for anyone to access, particularly for our own students, and establishing new schools in Pakistan.

These steps, among others, are expected to eventually make education accessible to all. We are setting up an endowment fund to start a scholarship scheme to get our brightest students at the primary and secondary level a decent education.

What support do you need for the success of this programme?
We need human resource for our programme. Technical equipment, such as camera and editing console, comes later. We are now starting an endowment fund for scholarships, and are looking for financial assistance, although I hope that we will be able to meet our needs by ourselves.
How do you see this programme in three, five and 10 years from now?
In three years, we aim to have a full repository of online learning. It will include lectures for all levels in Urdu as well as English.
In five years we foresee at least one school running under the stepUP Pakistan. And by the end of the decade, we want to be at least sponsoring 5,000 primary and secondary school students.
Who are your partners in this project?
At this point there are a few friends: Faseh Rehman from the International Islamic University, Seerat Zehra from Beaconhouse and Asif Rashid form the more permanent volunteer base. We have many other people helping us part time.
What else do you have in mind for the future?
This project is, of course, just my way of giving back to Pakistan and its people what they have bestowed upon me. It is different from my professional goals. I do want to establish a uniform education board in the country on which I will begin work in a few years.
I hope to work on something like the Cambridge International Examinations—an examination board to deliver rock-bottom priced papers of an international standard, and will be accessible to all with its internationally-recognised standard of education.
How do you think Pakistan can meet its education emergency?
I believe more funds should be allocated to education by all the stakeholders. It is essential that educational projects and other education-oriented endeavours in the state must be managed better. All the usual factors need to be there for this emergency to be met. The most important factor is the political will of our leaders. A strong and sincere resolve on part of the government to meet this crisis is mandatory in order for Pakistan to meet its education emergency. There is absolutely no alternative to it.
The social sector can do all the social work in the world but at the end of the day it is the government that has the authority and the resources to address this issue. We all need to come together at this point. Unfortunately, many of us who can do this, do not realise the full gravity of the matter.

 
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