3.8m illiterates educated so far: NCHD

Islamabad: The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) had made 3.8 million illiterates educated so far with 90 per cent women, said the NCHD media consultant Rai Riaz Hussain.

Talking to APP, he said the commission was the only national organization working on improving literacy rate with full coverage across the country. At present, he said, there were 5,567 feeder schools working with 6,229 teachers and 272,289 students enrolled in the adult literacy centres established by the commission.

To a question, he said the NCHD was the only organization which had approved syllabus of Literacy by Ministry of Education, adding it was also working in close collaboration with all the stakeholders to achieve the Vision 2025 target to attain 90 percent literacy rate. Rai Riaz said that the commission had worked out in a coordinated mechanism by fostering community participation, developing management efficiency through generating public private partnerships.

NCHD was declared as Lead Agency for Literacy in 2010 by the then prime Minister of Pakistan and gained internationally recognition by winning UNESCO Reading Award for Literacy in 2006, he added.

The number of feeder schools set up in Punjab was 1,645, teachers teaching 1,928 with 77,507 students enrolled, the province of Sindh had maximum number of schools established i.e. 2,965 with 3,187 teachers and maximum number of students enrolled 156,815.

The Balochistan province had 416 schools, 433 teachers and 15,927 students enrolled; Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) has 254 schools, 298 teachers teaching with 10,774 enrolled students, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) had 73 schools, 96 teachers and 4,202 students, Gilgit-Baltistan lagged with 50 established schools, 78 teachers with the least number of 471 enrolled students while Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) had 164 schools, 209 teachers and 6,593 students enrolled. -