KP top in rural literacy, Punjab second

LAHORE: Rural Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with literacy rate of 78 percent in males and 39 percent in females is the most literate province in Pakistan followed by rural Punjab with 62 and 34 percent and rural Sindh 38 and 15 percent, respectively.
A new survey of rural Pakistan by International Policy Research Institute revealed this and various other social statistic calling for urgency of improving people’s well-being and expanding their opportunities for a better life and the statistic collected show that it will be a daunting challenge for the economic planners.
The survey report titled “The Young and the Restless” reveals details in IPRI magazine Insight. It points out that 62 percent of Pakistanis live in rural areas, where poverty is a major concern. The data was collected from 2090 rural households comprising 13,337 people and was conducted during 2012-2014 from rural households in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The province not surveyed was Balochistan, obviously due to law and order problems in its rural areas.
The report reveals that 25 percent of the population in three provinces is under the age of 10 years. Among children aged 5-14, 61 percent of boys and 46 percent of girls are enrolled in school. Poverty and security concerns about sending daughters to school were cited as the main reasons for not enrolling children in school. Only 49 percent of individuals in Pakistan have ever attended school. It is interesting to note that highest number of years below 10 years of age is enrolled in KP where 77 percent of children are enrolled in school; compared with 62 percent in Punjab and only 27 percent in Sindh.
The household survey revealed that most households experienced some shock in the two years preceding the survey, and most of them had no coping strategies for responding to these shocks. For instance, 57 percent of the respondents said that illness or injury is a shock that is hard to cope with. Repair of home due to floods was the other non-budgeted expense that was faced by 25 percent household. Additional other costs of wedding burdened 18 percent households. Around 14 percent faced loss or destruction of some consumption assets. The reduction or suspension of remittances adversely affected the budgets of 8 percent households. Six percent lost livestock during floods, the income of 6 percent was reduced due to injury and 2 percent had to bear expenses on cases pending in courts.
The report revealed that given the large share that households spend on basics like food and housing, there is little money left for education. Though the share of food in consumer inflation index is 38 percent the survey revealed that rural poor spend 63 percent of their income on food, beverages and tobacco. This huge spending leaves them with limited resources to spend on other necessities. The survey showed that these rural households spend only one percent of their budget on education, five percent on medical care, 16 percent on housing, fuel and lighting and 8 percent on laundry.
The availability of basic public services says a lot about the level of development in a village. In a survey of 76 selected villages, availability of services varied tremendously. Although nearly all villages were electrified, daily power outages of 7-18 hours were common. In fact, 93 percent of rural houses surveyed had access to electricity. The LPG cylinders were the basic kitchen fuel of 59 percent of the households. Eleven percent of the households had the privilege of natural gas connection through the pipeline. Twenty-six percent of the residents surveyed enjoyed fixed line telephone connection. Still the most amazing fact was the cellular phones were available in 100 percent households.
Only 18 percent had access to proper sewerage system and merely one percent has garbage collection services in their neighborhood. It was heartening to note that 80 percent of the households availed the immunization facilities provided by the government. Fifty one percent of the households were aware of family planning program and 43 percent of health awareness program and 43 percent household benefited from health awareness program.
The researchers pointed out that survey was a tough exercise still they feel that it provides support to Pakistan’s government as a way to contribute to pro-poor economic growth and improved food security. Conducted in three rounds between 2012 and 2014, the survey focused on a sample of rural households from three provinces: Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Two other rounds surveyed a sub-sample of farm households. Enumerators collected massive amounts of detailed data on everything from sources of income, assets and savings, loans and credit, to consumption and nutrition, education levels, migration, aspirations, participation in social safety nets, school facilities, and local prices.