Speakers

Baela Jamil is the CEO of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (Centre for Education and Consciousness) in Pakistan, whose mission is to build a nationwide social movement for progressive education, learning and life skills for all children, adolescents and youth inclusively through evidence, innovations, digital solutions and partnerships. A public policy specialist and activist, Jamil has led social movements for early childhood education, girls' education, and education in emergencies. Her contributions to education saw her nominated for the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's highest civilian honours. Baela Jamil is the recipient of the T4 Asia Education Medal (2024).

She is the founder of the Children's and Teachers' Literature Festival, now called the Pakistan Learning Festival, that promotes reading and creative learning among all children. Promoting active libraries, children’s books and reading hour in schools, her organisation has distributed over 1.2 million books in more than 10,000 schools/libraries nationwide reaching over 2 million children. She is the global Champion for the Learning Generation Initiative. Jamil serves on the IBE Council UNESCO, the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network and is on the Advisory Committee for the Yidan Prize Foundation.

Jamil leads the influential citizen-led national assessment and learning initiatives of ASER Pakistan and the foundational learning (FL) programme Teaching at the Right Level (TARL)/Chalo Parho Barho (CPB) by ITA, promoting accelerated pedagogies for foundational learning. Through her work, she has advocated for making the invisible visible, promoting education for children with disabilities and advocating for policies, programmes and assessments that support inclusive education for the most marginalised. Jamil successfully spearheaded advocacy for inclusion of Foundational Learning in SDGs2030 as SDG 4.1.1a, or the lower primary indicator.

Jamil spearheaded Pakistan's first Education Parliamentarians Caucus (EPC), launched on the International Day of Education in 2022 with 20 parliamentarians.

She has served as Technical Adviser to the federal government on education and currently is a member of the Punjab Chief Minister’s Advisory Committee on Education, advising on education sector reforms and sector-wide approaches from early childhood development to post-secondary education, inclusion, workforce initiatives, public-private partnerships, innovations and financing.

Her evidence-based advocacy work has led to a steady increase in learning outcomes with a 15% increase in reading and mathematics skills among grade 5 students between 2014 and 2020, an increase in enrollment of adolescent girls. Her organisation, ITA has reached more than 17 million beneficiaries and has spearheaded the training of over 25000 teachers.

Jamil's work has led to the establishment of new schools and large programmes at post-primary level especially for girls, providing access to quality education for thousands of children in underserved communities. She has empowered more than 100,000 adolescent girls to become changemakers in their communities, ending child marriages with many pursuing higher education, and 20,000+ provided with skills with entrepreneurial tech-based leadership becoming role models for others.