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Dr. Zareef Memorial School (ZMS) is one of the pioneer non-profit projects of the ZKF established in 1988 and is housed in a rented building. At present, it is providing good quality education to 550 children aged four to fifteen (for one fourth amount of fee compared to equivalent quality schools in the city). This school caters for the needs of the eastern periphery of Peshawar city. It has 38 female teachers, two teacher assistants and one librarian teacher.

In 1991, Ms. Amanda Edwards and in 1992, Mrs. Margaret Edwards from UK volunteered to head the school for one year each. Ms. Muffin and Mr.John Darren Green from the UK had also volunteered as teachers in this school in the years 1991 and 2000 respectively.

Since April 1994, Sr. Patricia Kennedy who is an Australian Volunteer has headed the School as the Principal, Advisor, Teacher Trainer and the moving spirit behind the establishment of the sister institution called ERIC. She has trained a team of local teachers who are able to run workshops for teachers in ERIC in English as well as in native languages of Urdu and Pashto.

Since 2004, cool school practices are adopted in ZMS where children resolve their own disputes and differences through the mediators from amongst themselves who have been trained by their teachers. In January 2004, all teachers were trained by a Professor of Canterbury University in New Zealand where such schools are called the “Cool Schools”.

ZMS is the only School in its category in the province / country which has proudly achieved the following standards:

In the year 2000, Sr. Kennedy was instrumental in raising funds back home to establish a top of the range (P-II) computer lab with nine PCs / Units which are linked by networking. It was commissioned and named Kennedy Computer Lab. She is also instrumental in raising funds and collecting books for the library which boasts nearly 3500 books by now.

The school policy endeavours to produce such youth who will seriously consider to adopt the interests and / or professions in the field of biodiversity, teaching and sports besides others. Field trips to wildlife parks, pheasantries, industries and museums are organised besides art and speeches on the subject.

Since 2004, the school has opened a ZMS building fund account in the bank. Local and foreign fund raising activity is in progress for grants and donations towards the aim of purchasing a block of land and constructing its own building. The opening of the service road in front of the school building for public buses has made the present location too inconvenient, noisy and risky for the children. So far, Sr. Kennedy has raised nearly A$ 60,000 from her family and Convent in Australia. Equal amount is donated by the President of the ZKF.

ZMS mission may seem different then most schools in Pakistan because it aims to build the personality of a child as a whole rather than only bookish knowledge. Also in ZMS we are happy to take those weak students who may otherwise miss the chance of doing matriculation because other schools will not accept them. In other words, the aim is not to get positions in the examination of the testing Boards. It is to prove that the student can do so many things in life even if one cannot score very high marks.

Tarkha Village is adjacent to village Ali Shah (the birthplace of Dr. Zareef Khan). It is a privilege for ZKF to be able to open a branch of its school in Tarkha in a purpose built building.

School was opened on 06 April 2009 and by mid May, 60 children are admitted in Nursery (age 4) to class 3 (age 8)

Ten women were invited to attend fifty contact hours of BASIC TEACHER TRAINING in the Tarkha branch building from 21 to 30th March 2009. Five of the best trained teachers were / are selected for the job who are providing top class education under the leadership of Ms. Aqeela Azeem who is appointed as the Principal . She has 15 years training and teaching experience in ZMS (Pesh) and ERIC. She also organised the above training.