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.

Illiteracy mars access to justice

A reporter travels through the rural areas of Pakistan in order to experience and see what the situations actually are. This is what he has to say:

While visiting different parts of the country, particularly, those of the Sindh Province, I have logically concluded that apart from extreme poverty, another significant obstacle to the realization of access to justice in the rural Pakistan is the high level of illiteracy prevalent in the country today. It is most unfortunate that the socio-economic structure of the country has made it impossible for the vast majority of Pakistanis to have access to education, notwithstanding the various development plans and programmes by the successive governments, which emphasized the importance of education but unfortunately not a lot was virtually done on the ground. 

This problem has been worsened by the current collapse of public schools, including varsities, which have now made education an exclusive commodity to be purchased and consumed by the bourgeoisie through private institutions.

Yet the inestimable value of education and its capacity to empower the citizenry can hardly be over-emphasized. An educated man will easily adapt to the realities of the situation and have the intellectual capacity to insist on the enforcement of his rights, quite unlike the illiterate. Education thus empowers him/her to maximize the opportunities and resources available in his/her environment.

Since education has the capacity of liberating the individual from ignorance, poverty and diseases, the lack of it has serious mental, political and economic implications, which greatly impede ‘access to justice’ in Pakistan. At a particular level, it breeds poverty, docility, and even forced connivance with agents of oppression and marginalization. The net result is that, today, a large majority of Pakistanis do not have access to social justice and are alienated from the political and economic structures of society. But unfortunately to provide “ access to justice” to the people of this country by promoting literacy, especially, lego-literacy, and alleviating poverty, is not the prime concern of our ruling elite in Pakistan.

Another leader speaks out.

Speaking at the Rotary South Asia Literacy Summit 2013, senior education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, representing Pakistan, said: "Illiteracy is the biggest menace, impeding development of mankind and the situation is more true for south Asia which inhabits more illiterate population than anywhere else."

Learn to Serve!

According to a survey

Let's peek at what the situation is:
                   UNESCO Islamabad Director Dr Kozue Kay Nagata has said, “Illiteracy in Pakistan has fallen over two decades, thanks to the government and people of Pakistan for their efforts working toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals.” 

“Today, 70 percent of Pakistani youths can read and write. In 20 years, illiterate population has been reduced significantly,” she said while speaking at a function held in connection with International Literacy Day. However, she also emphasised on the need to do more to improve literacy in the country and said, “The proportion of population in Pakistan lacking basic reading and writing is too high. This is a serious obstacle for individual fulfillment, to the development of societies, and to mutual understanding between peoples.”

 Referring to the recent national survey carried out by the Ministry of Education, Trainings and Standards in Higher Education with support of UNESCO, UNICEF and provincial and areas departments of education, Dr Nagata pointed out that, in Pakistan, although primary school survival rate is 70 percent, gender gap still exists with only 68 percent of girls’ survival rate compared to 71 percent for boys. Dr Nagata made reference to the survey report and mentioned that the most common reason in Pakistan for children (both boys and girls) of age 10 to 18 years leaving school before completing primary grade is “the child not willing to go to school”, which may be related to quality and learning outcome. She said, however, and sadly, for the children living in rural communities the second highest reason for dropout is “helping parents earning money ”.

Further news.

      Hello, so in this session at the spectacular GNML, I learnt about how to add RSS and Google Alerts. It was so amazing to turn things comes to you instead of typing in the search bar and spending tons of time, looking for the thing that you need. I found these tools very effective and useful.

      Using these tools as the key, I found a quite informative piece of writing that helps me with my social issue. According to it, HEC wants to help with the current problem of illiteracy in Pakistan. But the problem, they are facing is that they need more funding for the education sector to nourish. Also, now HEC is focusing on some particular areas to gain more desired results.
      So far their funding has resulted in the establishment of well reputed research institutes in Pakistan with global recognition like National Centre for Physics (NCP), Government College University (GCU), HEJ research institute of Chemistry and many more. For such more achievements, they require funds which the Government is not facilitating them with. If so, these projects need time to complete and become active.

This tells me how there are some governmental organizations that are willing to create changes in the education system of Pakistan. That this issue is gaining attention day by day and soon there would be BIG steps by the government to overcome or at least thats what they should do. When I carry out campaigns as per my main objective, this would help me as people would be aware of this arising issue already.

The link to where I got this piece of information is: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-214637-HEC-needs-more-funding-for-education-sector

Illiteracy: a worldwide issue

Hello Readers!

                         This is Rida Rizwan from Pakistan. I am in States right now as apart of YES 11. Placed in De Pere, Wisconsin, I am grateful that I applied for this program at the first place.     

            
         The issue that I will be addressing is Illiteracy. Illiteracy is basically one’s inability to read or write. In today’s progressing world, survival of an illiterate man is very difficult.

     Illiteracy, being a social issue itself badly affects the economy and politics of a country. The rise in population leads to unemployment problems. People then, do not have enough money to send their children to school, even if they want to and poverty takes birth. People are not able to send their children to school even if they want to. As a result of untrained people, economy collapses and everything falls apart. People who are illiterate do not tend to investigate which causes incompetent politicians coming in the government. And so political issues arise. This is what usually happens if illiteracy exists. The fact that illiteracy can be the cause of many other issues/problems always impresses me and I think that is why I chose this as the issue to focus upon. 

        Sadly today, Illiteracy is shadowing many countries including Pakistan. Although there are several non-profit organizations that are putting their efforts in educating children bit illiteracy still excises. In order to eradicate it, more hands are needed and i would love to volunteer for this good deed when I go back home. 

          For this, social media will play a great role. It can be used as a tool to spread awareness among people about the poor, unmaintained schools that surround them. Also it can be used to gather people for fundraisers, book drives and all sorts of possible ways to help the school so more children could attend schools. It would help me to initiate campaigns in my neighborhood in order to help and support the education system.

My slogan is LEARN TO SERVE.

Thank you for Reading! :)

Hope you liked it.

Looking forward to positive remarks and feedbacks.

Good Day!