NCHD to make National Plan of Action on literacy

Islamabad: The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) in collaboration with the Unesco and support of the Federal Ministry of Education and Technical Training and Planning Commission of Pakistan is going to make the National Plan of Action to achieve the target of 90 per cent literacy rate in the country.

"This National Plan of Action is to envisage that the provincial authorities will use the plans to transform policy decisions into action on the ground," NCHD chairperson Razina Alam Khan said during the 47th commission meeting here.

Among those in attendance were Roshan K. Bharocha from Balochistan, Saba Gul Khattak from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr Sono Khangrani from Sindh, Dr Mubashar Bhatti from Punjab, representatives of ministries of education and finance, and Mushtaq Ahmed of NCHD director general.

The NCHD chairperson said keeping in view the grim situation of literacy in the country and commitment to international community in the shape of EFA and SDGs, it was the obligation of the government to provide a potential platform to address the issue on priority basis.

"The Vision 2025 of Planning Commission set the target to achieve universal primary education and literacy rate of 90 per cent by 2025," she said. Razina Alam Khan said the promotion of basic education and literacy had been hampered by a lack of coherent and pragmatic planning at all levels and that there was no progress reviewing mechanism to provide timely feedback to both implementers and other stakeholders.

She said the NCHD had been tasked with undertaking an exercise in all four provinces and GB, FATA and AJK to formulate a National Plan of Action in line with Vision 2025 and SDG 4 by the Planning Commission.

"The National Plan of Action will focus on two areas i.e. adult literacy for the age group of 14 and above and primary education both Formal Education for the age group of 5-9 and non-formal education for age group of 10-14 to achieve 90 per cent literacy rate in the country until 2025. This plan will outline the principles and guidelines for planning and setting targets to be achieved which will be based on deep analysis of literacy situation in all the four provinces," she informed.

The NCHD chairperson said the preparation of plan would follow a participatory approach and ensure participation of all stakeholders in the field of education and literacy. She said coordination forums at provincial and national level would be constituted to establish ownership of the plan to monitor and coordinate activities pertaining to NPA goals in the provinces.

She regretted that 44 per cent of the children between the age of 5 and 16 years were out of school, while of the 26 million children enrolled in schools, only 32 per cent reached the matriculation level.

The NCHD chairperson also said the primary net enrollment was 77 per cent and of it, 32 per cent were dropouts, while more girls were out of school. She informed participants about the education programme, ongoing projects, follow-up and monitoring mechanism of NCHD projects, NCHD future plans i.e. establishment of 5000 Adult Literacy Centers in all the provinces for the age of 15 to 45 years, Prison Literacy Programme in 99 jails, activities of National Training Institute, training of feeder teachers and establishment of 50 non-formal basic education schools.

The members of the commission appreciated the NCHD efforts for the promotion of literacy and skill development. They also discussed the administrative issues of employees such as regularisation, salaries streamlining and career development.