ISLAMABAD: As the United Nations (UN) observes its first anniversary of adopting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Friday, the chairperson of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), Senator Razina Alam Khan, expressed concerns that 57 million people in Pakistan, including 50pc women, were still illiterate.

Ms Khan told Dawn on Thursday that in order to become functional citizens in the age of the global onslaught of information and knowledge of unimaginable proportion, achieving basic literacy was a fundamental requirement.

“But that is not possible if 57 million people in the country are illiterate. Moreover, roughly 24 million children have never been to school. Approximately, only 33pc of the 26 million children, who do enroll, reach the matriculation level.”

The NCHD chairperson said the primary net enrollment in the country was 72pc out of which 33pc were dropouts. She said the NCHD had adopted a universal set of goals, targets and indicators in the realm of literacy, non-formal education, skill development and empowerment of women.

As UN observes first anniversary of adopting Sustainable Development Goals, 57m in Pakistan are illiterate

This included the countrywide enrollment campaign during which 82,166 children have been enrolled since April 2016.

“When a nation is educated, it would definitely carve ways to be self sufficient. An economically independent society is the stepping stone to combined productivity that leads to the economic growth of the nation on the whole,” she said, emphasising the development of human labour force.

“Basic education is an essential requirement, especially in the case of Pakistan, where 40pc people are illiterate - one of the highest in the world.”

Discussing the NCHD education programmes and initiatives, she said a madressah school project had been launched to bring seminaries into the mainstream and provide formal education to the seminary students in the Islamabad capital territory, Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. She said the project was functional in 100 seminaries, enabling students to achieve the standards of national education system besides introducing them to modern subjects such as science, mathematics, social studies and English.

She said the NCHD’s literacy and skill development project for jails targeted prisoners to make them useful citizens after completing their terms. Currently, eight adult literacy centres are functional in the jails of Kasur and Toba Tek Singh.

The NCHD plans to establish such centres in all the 99 jails of the country,” she said.

Besides its regular programmes, the NCHD managed to have different educational/literacy and skill-related projects through public-private schemes in collaboration with donors and provincial governments. She said: “In September we launched a non-formal education project in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Association (JICA). Under the project, 50 non-formal schools will be established in Islamabad for children in the age group of eight to 14 years.

The adult literacy programme focuses on women, especially mothers, said Ms Khan.

Correction: A NCHD spokesperson has clarified that the percentage of illiterate women provided by the NCHD chairperson (90pc) is incorrect. The correct figure is 50pc.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2016