Education the biggest human right: NCHD chief

Islamabad: The biggest human right is access to education and literacy, said National Commission for Human Development Chairperson Razina Alam Khan on Friday.

She was speaking to the NCHD educationists, who called on her here in connection with the Universal Human Rights Day to be marked on December 10 with the aim to strive progressively for securing and providing individuals and societies with every right for their survival and recognition.

The NCHD chairperson said in order to fight for one’s right, it was necessary that one should be acquainted to it but unfortunately 40 per cent of Pakistani adults belonging to remote areas of Pakistan were illiterate and mostly unaware of their rights. "Education is the only way to create awareness among people of their rights. Education and literacy creates real empowerment," she said.

Razina Alam said literacy was considered to be an essential pre-requisite for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge as it provided building blocks for raising the quality and standard of life of people and open up avenues of access to knowledge. She said the NCHD under the patronage of the Federal Ministry of Education and Technical Training and with the support and cooperation of other stakeholders was working with a mission to promote human development by improving literacy in the country.

"Keeping in view the low literacy rate in country, the NCHD has adopted a two pronged approach to provide access to education i.e. Adult Literacy Programme for the mothers and Universal Primary Education through its feeder schools in the remote areas for the unprivileged children, especially girls," she said. The NCHD chairperson said 5,949 formal feeder schools of the NCHD were functional all over the country with 320,000 enrolment along with 5,000 adult literacy centres in the establishment process.

She said the NCHD had designed its education programme focusing especially on the deprived women by establishing 95 percent literacy centres for women in remote areas of the country. "Both women and men should be made aware of their responsibilities to promote and practice gender-equality. The society should be made aware that both boys and girls are equal, and both should have equal access to resources," she said.