USAID, IRC launches ‘Pakistan Reading Project’ to tackle illiteracy rate.

Islamabad: USAID and the International rescue Committee (IRC) has launched a $160 million program named Pakistan Reading Project aiming at tackling one of the highest child illiteracy rates in the world.

Through the Pakistan Reading Project, the IRC and 10 partner organizations will work to improve the quality of reading education in 38,000 schools and develop reading instruction skills of 94,000 teachers over next five years.

“The launch of the Pakistan Reading Project represents a long term commitment from the IRC and USAID to reach 3.2 million children with improved reading programs and ensure that 2.5 million of them are reading at grade level”, says John Keys, the IRC’s senior vice president of international programs. “We anticipate that these boys and girls will carry these skills with them into secondary and tertiary education, and then into adulthood. They are the future of Pakistan”.

Pakistan is one of those few countries where illiteracy rates are high. A 2010 study by Brookings Institution showed tat there were 47 million illiterate adults in Pakistan and the number is not decreasing.

According to government statistics, Pakistan’s primary school enrollment rate is only 66 percent and some 7.2 million primary school age children are not in school. The situation in Pakistan has been widely described as educational emergency.