ISLAMABAD, Feb 14 (APP):Chairperson National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Senator Razina Alam Khan has said that literacy vital for improving human indicators in the country.
She said this while addressing the Operational Review Meeting, which was attended by all the provincial heads and head of departments here at the Head Office, a press release said.
She said, “Education being the basis of human civilizations, benefits societies in many ways, as a major driver for economic growth and human development, empowers individuals by giving a better understanding for living a healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.
People who are illiterates lack decision making power and are less likely to participate in civic life. Hence, human indicators are all linked with education. We need to introduce education as an element for improving human indicators; we can say literacy plays a vital role in improving human indicators”.
She said though the government of Pakistan has taken steps to improve education and improvement is observed as decrease in out of school children, increase in Adjusted Net Enrollment Rate in Primary Education from 72% to 7 7% and increase in education facilities as well. All these efforts could not meet the target of 90% literacy rate, as we are moving at a very slow pace, we need to take some fast track initiatives to achieve 90% literacy rate, she maintained.
All the participants from provinces presented ongoing programmes in their respective domains and a detail discussion was generated about enrollment campaign, passing out of the students of 5th grade and different success stories.
The issue of raise of honorarium for teachers was raised by the provincial heads and it was decided that the issue will be taken with the government for approval.
All the policy makers need to focus on 40% illiterate population and a multi pronged strategy should be adapted to approach these 57 million illiterates, chairperson informed.
The NCHD is developing a comprehensive roadmap “National Plan of Action” with the help of provincial governments for encompassing mechanism for the achievement of education targets set in Vision 2025 and SDGs, she further informed.
She said this NPA is going to be launched very soon and serious efforts from all stakeholders working in the field of education including Government department/Institutions, NGOs, INGOs and donors will be required to work on the set targets of NPA in true spirits.
While briefing about salient features of new PC-1 it was informed that, we are focusing to empower by imparting livelihood and income generating skills along with basic literacy skills to 515,000 illiterates of 15-45 yrs by establishing 20,650 Functional Literacy Centers all over the country.
The NCHD main agenda in UPE is to support districts by providing access to out of school children by increasing enrollment rate and decreasing drop out rate, 5949 feeder schools all over the country are working to fulfill this requirement. It was further informed that NCHD is working on enhancement of non-formal schools as another initiative for mainstreaming of 6.4 million children of age 10-16, who have missed the schools.
In order to support human indicators through education, school health program and health & hygiene sessions along with free medical camps will be organized in functional literacy centers through volunteerism for community development department being relaunched through PC-1.
National Training Institute for non-formal education is being strengthened in upcoming PC-1 to prepare a pool of professionals for literacy and NFE by building capacity of 500 provincial and district level planners and managers, 500 teachers will be trained and research studies will be conducted in Lit & NFE, she observed.
The chairperson also informed the participants that NCHD will introduce performance based incentives to the employees. The director general informed the ORM that disbursement of staff salary from AGPR has started partially for the staff whose documentary requirement had been fulfilled. She also informed that the provision of medical facility to the NCHD staff is being introduced as well. The provincial heads on behalf of employees appreciated the efforts of chairperson and director general of NCHD being done by them for the welfare of employees.
All stakeholders being Pakistani and Muslim should support government by playing their role as an individual for achieving 90% literacy rate in the country to improve human indicators, she stressed. In this case each one, teach one is the best policy, she viewed.
