January 19, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 09, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) will hold an All Parties Conference (APC) on ‘Education for All’ on Feb 5 – about two weeks before the general election.

The UN body will organise the event in collaboration with the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat).

At a news briefing here on Friday, Unesco’s representative in Islamabad, Jorge Sequoia, and Ahmed Bilal Mehboob of Pildat said all political parties having a representation in the National Assembly or any provincial legislature had been invited to the APC.

The organisers said Pakistan had taken a number of initiatives to improve the state of primary education, but needed to do a lot more to catch up with its South Asian neighbours and to meet the targets set at the millennium summit in 2000.

The objective of the conference is to brief the political leadership about the state of primary education, especially in comparison with Saarc members. The Pildat is also preparing background papers for the political leadership and media to provide them some basic information about the key issues facing the ‘Education for All’ movement in Pakistan.

The Unesco official said the APC would be an appropriate forum to remind the political leadership about the commitment made in Article 37-b of the Constitution: ‘The state of Pakistan shall remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within minimum possible period”.

He pointed out that despite efforts, Pakistan was suffering from one of the lowest education indicators _ net enrolment ratio of 68 per cent, adult literacy ratio of 50 per cent and gender parity in primary education completion rate of 76 females per 100 male students.

He said 63 per cent of the total illiterates in Pakistan were women.

In reply to a question, he said some madressahs were imparting adequate education to their students.