April 5, 2003	Saturday	Safar 2, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, April 4: The number of illiterate people in Pakistan has increased from 10 million in 1951 to 50 million at present.

This was revealed to the participants of a meeting of International Partners Forum for Education For All held at the UN conference room.

The participants were informed that Pakistan was facing a shortfall of Rs253 billion under the national plan of action on Education For All (EFA).

Speaking on the occasion, the secretary education, Tariq Farook, said the national plan of action covered all important components. These include public sector policy for EFA in three areas — elementary education, adult literacy and early childhood education.

He said it also focused on cross-cutting issues and themes like quality improvement, gender equity, poverty alleviation and decentralization. He said detail programmes, actions and strategies would also be worked out in the district plans.

The EFA focal person from the provinces and federating units will apprise the forum about the latest developments in preparation of district and provincial EFA plans, establishment of EFA units and functioning of EFA forums at district and provincial levels, he added.

Mr Farook said: “I want to highlight the fact that the national plan of action has been developed through broad-based participation and intensive consultation with all the principle actors of Education For All i.e. provinces and federating units, international development partners, bilateral and multilateral agencies, NGOs, media and other concerns.

The implementation on the plan was initiated in 2001-2002. However, the implementation coincided with the launching of country-wide devolution, where systems of planning, financing, and utilization are in transition.

Under the Education Sector Reforms, the main focus is on ‘education for all’ for which a considerable amount of Rs2.5 billion, over and above the existing budget, had already been given to the partners and federating units.

The education secretary said funds were being allocated for the current financial year and hopefully also in the next year budget for EFA under the Education Sector Reforms programme.

These funds are in addition to the regular ADP budget. This shows the commitment of the government for EFA. However, despite all this there is a big gap in financial needs/requirements.

He said under the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), “we are trying to bridge the financial gap. He said a committee for the FTI had been constituted which was actively working to meet the requirements of the FTI to make the country eligible for external funding.

“We have conducted and also planned a series of meetings with our International Development Partners in this regard. We certainly appreciate the interest and concern of our partners for educational development in general and EFA in particular,” he added.

Mr Farook said now it was the time to formally launch the National Plan of Action on EFA.

Though the task is gigantic which needs massive efforts, I am optimistic that through our joint efforts, sincere cooperation and collaboration, we will achieve our targets within the stipulated timeframe, he added.

An official report — National Plan of Action on Education for All 2001-2015 — stated that Pakistan was facing an enormous shortfall of resources for the national plan of action on EFA.

In order to furnish resources to fill this gap, international development partners will be approached for financial assistance through grant and debt swap.