57 million illiterates in country: NCHD chief

Islamabad

To provide education is a fundamental responsibility of the state and every child is entitled to it as it is critical for our development as individuals and society as well, and it helps cover the way to a successful and productive future.

When we ensure that children have access to a quality education that is rooted in gender equality, we create a ripple effect of opportunity that impacts generations to come. Unfortunately, education could not get the due priority by the successive governments and thus, resulting in 57 million illiterates in the country.

This was observed by chairperson of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Razina Alam Khan while addressing the Organisational Review and Senior Management meeting here on Thursday.

Razina Alam said the government had taken the initiatives of building concrete educational foundation of the country and gave considerable attention to the betterment of education.

She said in this connection, it was encouraging to note the decrease in out of school children from 24 million to 22.6 million and increase in the net enrolment rate from 72% to 77% during the last three years along with increase of students in the public sector schools.

“The total gross enrolment of all sectors and levels of education increased from 44.4 million to 47.5 million,” she added.

She said Pakistan among other countries of the world has signed the Sustainable Development Goals, and Goal 4 of SDGs relates to quality education and lifelong learning. Various levels and dimensions of monitoring frameworks have been defined to better monitor the SDG-4 at national and global levels, she added.

“The monitoring system that provides in-depth specifics of education system, provides greater opportunities to policy makers for their unique circumstance and development priorities.”

She said as Pakistan was unable to achieve the Education for All agenda by 2015, the pounding significance and unfinished business of EFA would be integral part of new agenda and in this connection significant improvement has been witnessed.

Learning through accelerated courses is the only way today to cater for 22.6 million Out of School Children and 57 million illiterates; which is a challenging factor for all the stakeholders involved in education, she observed. The Accelerated Learning modules and condensed syllabus would provide OOSC a second chance/ opportunity to take part in educational activities, she said.

The NCHD chairperson expressed concern about the fact that 44% of the children between the age of 5-16 are out of school and out of 26 million children who are enrolled; only 32% reach the matriculation level.

While discussing the grim educational statistic in Pakistan, she said the primary net enrolment was 77% out of which 32% are dropouts.

She said more girls are out of school, i.e. 49% compared to 40% of boys.

“The NCHD along with other stakeholders with the Vision 2025 under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would implement plans to increase primary school enrolment and completion rate to 100% along with 90% achievement of literacy rate.”

Participants were briefed about the status of education programme its ongoing projects, evaluation of NCHD programme by Core Committee, NCHD future plans i.e. establishment of 2000 Adult Literacy Centres through PHDF and 3000 Functional Literacy Centres approved by Planning Commission in all the provinces for the age of 15 to 45 years, Prison Literacy Programme in 99 jails of Pakistan, establishment of National Training Institute, Training of Feeder Teachers and establishment of 50 Non Formal Basic Education Schools in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

She called for the need to devise ‘National Policy on Non-Formal Education and Adult Literacy’ and formation of Inter-provincial forum that will provide guidance to achieve the objectives of the Vision 2025 i.e. 40 % population literate and also to empower them through skill development programs in coordination with the other agencies. 

Article source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/192766-57-million-illiterates-in-country-NCHD-chief