ILMpact - Girls and Out-of-School Children - Action for Learning

ILMpact - Girls and Out-of-School Children - Action for Learning

Duration of Project 

(Start and End Date)

September 2025 – September 2027

Donors/Partners:  Funded by FCDO–British Council

Project Focal Person from SDPI: Rabia Tabassum

Project Focal Person’s Email Address: Rabia_tabassum@sdpi.org

Locale: Fifteen Districts in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Project Lead: Qasim Ali Shah

Project Team

Qasim Shah (Team Lead),
Rabia Tabassum (Project Manager),
Dr Mohsin Ali (Lead Statistician),
S. Waqar Hussian (Developer),
Imran Mushtaq (IT Officer),
Imrana Niazi (Reporting and Quality Assurance),
Ahad Nawaz Khan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Lead) and
Hassan Murtaza (Punjab Lead)

Unit Name

Systems Research Group

Program/Project Rational and Background

The ILMpact Programme aims to improve access to learning for marginalised children, including girls, out of school children, minorities and children with disabilities. Its focus is to develop and strengthen foundational learning for children in schools through remediation; improving reading and math's skills of children; enhancing education and sensitizing school administration, parent-teacher councils/school management committees, teachers, and students to make school culture safer; changing perceptions around children from marginalized groups including girls, minority religions, and children with disabilities; building student leadership and long-term vision; provision of specialized support to children with disabilities to enrol and stay in school.

It is an FCDO funded programme, comprising of a consortium of 12 organizations (Sustainable Development Policy Institution (SDPI), Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), Think Equal, Pak Alliance for Maths and Science (PAMS), Sightsavers, National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), Mojaz Foundation, Muslim Hands, Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP), Participatory Rural Development Society (PRDS), Friend Welfare Association (FWA), and Pak Mission Society (PMS), led by the British Council.

SDPI, with the support from the programme Down Stream Partners (DSPs), has established strong working relationships with policy actors at the provincial and district levels. Under ILMpact, close collaboration has been forged with Directorate of Professional Development (DPD)/ Directorate of Curriculum and Teachers Education (DCTE), School Education Department (SED) Punjab, E&SED KP, and Punjab Education, Curriculum, Teacher Education and Assessment Authority (PECTAA), local governments, NADRA, and other key stakeholders has been established to institutionalize and ensure long-term sustainability of ILMpact approaches within government systems.

SDPI is leading the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) component of the programme. The System Research Group (SRG) at SDPI provides strategic oversight, accountability, and rigorous quality assurance across all MEL functions. SDPI co-developed the MEL framework, performance indicators, monitoring tools, and reporting dashboard. SDPI successfully completed the programme Baseline Survey. The survey covered 4,800 households across 13 districts, establishing benchmark values for key indicators including school enrolment, foundational literacy and numeracy, gender parity, and inclusion of children with disabilities and minority groups.

SDPI as MEL lead also implemented ongoing performance and process monitoring, supported by structured learning cycles. The Programme Dashboard also developed by SDPI serves as the central data management and visualization platform, enabling real-time tracking and analysis of key performance indicators. SDPI further supports the programme through continuous updating and analysis of KPI dashboards, systematic field monitoring, spot checks, and third-party data verification to ensure data quality, reliability, and alignment with results frameworks. Additionally, the under the MEL component, SDPI is dedicated to adaptive monitoring, thus prioritising continuous capacity strengthening of the Consortium partners through targeted trainings and workshops on standard operating procedures (SOPs), reporting protocols, and MEL tools for all implementing partners.

The programme aims to improve learning outcomes for 160,000 students, including 64,000 out-of-school children. A series of targeted trainings will build the capacity of 3,200 teachers across 400 schools, strengthening teaching practices and improving school accessibility. SDPI will track each beneficiary from enrolment throughout the programme period through a digital dashboard, ensuring secure and confidential management of beneficiary data.