Great civilisations achieved excellence through knowledge

Islamabad

Education plays such an important role in society and we cannot even think about modern and developed life without it. All great civilisations of human society have thrived due to knowledge, learning and excellence.

This was stated by National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) chairperson Razina Alam Khan while addressing the members of 43rd commission meeting here on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by Roshan K. Bharocha, Saba Gul Khattak, Sono Khangrani, Dr. Mubashar Bhatti and Taimoor Khan.

“A literate environment not only improves socioeconomic indicators in a society, it positively influences systems of governance also. As a matter of fact, everything we create today is based on the knowledge that we obtain throughout our life by innovative education, technology and technology based products,” she said. The NCHD chairperson said when a nation was educated, it definitely carved ways to be self-reliant.

“An economically independent society is the stepping stone for the combined productivity that leads to the economic growth of the nation on the whole,” she said. Ms Razina Alam said the most important national resource for development was the human labour force.

She said Pakistan was a country of almost 200 million people with half of them illiterate and that a country couldn’t progress due to illiteracy. The NCHD chairwoman said she was concerned that 57 million of the people in the country were illiterate and that 70 per cent of the 24 million children, who never went to the school, were girls.

She said in light of the low literacy rate among women, the NCHD had devised the ‘Adult Literacy Programme’ focusing on women, especially mothers. Ms Razina Alam deplored that the situation became even worse to know that of the 26 million children enrolled in schools, only 33 per cent reached the matriculation level.

“We’ve launched a countrywide enrollment campaign and 82,166 children have been enrolled in our feeder schools since April 2016,” she said. While discussing the grim educational statistics in Pakistan, she said the primary net enrolment rate was 72 per cent, including 33 per cent dropouts.

“Accessibility to education is one of the main reasons of low enrollment. In order to address this issue, the NCHD has established 5,949 community feeder schools in underprivileged and remote areas all over the Pakistan, 6,581 feeder teachers are working in these schools with 310,146 learners acquiring primary education,” she said.

Ms Razina said the NCHD had adopted sustainable development goals, targets and indicators in the realm of literacy, non-formal education, skill development, and empowerment of women.

She said if the educated youths voluntarily came forward, an enormous change could be brought in the situation of literacy and education of the country. “The university students can play vital role in this project,” she said.

She stressed the need for the introduction of an educational system that may eradicate illiteracy and provide the common man with an access not only to basic education but also to higher and technical education.

The participants discussed the NCHD strategy for establishment of 2,000 adult literacy centres and recommendation of the advisory council on framing national policy on non-formal education and adult literacy and national plan of action for achieving 90 percent literacy rate.