Islamabad - While Pakistan is among the countries far from achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) in collaboration with UNESCO under Federal Ministry of Education & Technical Training and Planning Commission of Pakistan is going to devise a viable solution i.e. ‘National Plan of Action’ to achieve 90 per cent literacy rate in the country.

This NPA will envisage that the provincial authorities will use the plans to transform policy decisions into action at the ground level.

This was observed by the chairperson NCHD, former Senator Razina Alam Khan in 47th Commission Meeting, held at NCHD head office Islamabad here today. The meeting was presided over by Chairperson NCHD Razina Alam Khan attended by Roshan K Bharocha (Balochistan), Saba Gul Khattak (KPK), Dr Sono Khangrani (Sindh), Dr Mubashar Bhatti (Punjab), representatives of Ministries of Education and Finance and Mushtaq Ahmed Director General NCHD.

Chairperson NCHD said that, keeping in view the grim situation of literacy in the country and commitment to international community in the shape of EFA and SDGs; it was the obligation of the government of Pakistan to provide a potential platform to address the issue on priority basis. The vision 2025 of Planning Commission of Pakistan set the target to achieve universal primary education and literacy rate of 90 per cent by year 2025, she informed.

She said, the National Plan of Action will focus on two areas, Adult Literacy(for age group 14 and above) and Primary Education both Formal Education(for age group 5-9) and Non-Formal education (for age group 10-14) to achieve 90 per cent literacy rate in the country till 2025.

The Chairperson expressed her concern over the fact that 44 per cent of the children between the ages of 5-16 are out of school, out of 26 million children who are enrolled; only 32 per cent reach the matriculation level. While discussing the grim educational statistic in Pakistan, Chairperson NCHD said the primary net enrolment is 77 per cent out of which 32 per cent are dropouts. She said more girls are out of school, i.e. 49 per cent compared to 40 per cent of boys.

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