- Nationwide school enrollment campaign from 9th
Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said that the government will fight illiteracy on emergency basis.
He said this while talking to media ahead of the International Literacy Day.
“Over half a million school aged children shall be enrolled in schools during a three day special nationwide enrollment campaign from September 9 to 11 to celebrate the International Literacy Day on September 8,” he said.
He said that without producing world class human resource the country has no chance of survival in today’s competitive world. “Pakistan lags behind all South Asian countries. We are living in knowledge revolution era and our development journey must start with education and end with education,” he opined.
Highlighting the literacy rate he said, “The number of children in Pakistan not attending school amounts to nearly 25 million. The average number of years of schooling completed is 4.9 years in Pakistan which is slightly ahead of Angola and Bangladesh. There are only 13 countries in the world with a low adult literacy rate than Pakistan, according to data compiled by the United Nations. These countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Mali, collectively some of the poorest countries in the world.”
He said that the three day enrollment campaign shall be run by all provincial governments including Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and FATA. Furthermore, he stated that the prime minister, members of cabinet, chief ministers, governors, parliamentarians, and senior officials will visit primary schools to personally enroll children and the media will be requested to run special programs.
