Punjab Minister for Literacy & Non-Formal Basic Education Raja Rashid Hafeez has said that 1300 literacy centres have been set up by the literacy department in various backward areas of the province. He said that over 400,000 deserving male and female children are getting primary as well as technical education in these centres.

The Minister was talking to a representative delegation of civil society organizations which called on him at his office on Tuesday. 

He apprised the delegation about various measures taken for the promotion of literacy at the grassroots level and said that the literacy department has provided the facility of free education to the deserving students who could not get admissions in schools. The students are provided free education at their doorsteps, he added. 

Rashid Hafeez said that the literacy department has encouraged such children to study so that they could continue their studies through formal schooling. In fact, the role of the literacy department against illiteracy is very important and pivotal, he maintained. 

Rashid Hafeez expressed the satisfaction that children of gypsy families are also studying in the literacy centres adding that the PTI government is working hard to promote the light of knowledge in the impecunious strata. Giving details of government efforts, he said that children are given education in their areas without being burdened and this has encouraged them to continue studies. 

The teachers reach-out to such children who are often engaged in some sort of earning activities, finding it difficult to spare time for regular schooling. As a result of the efforts of the literacy department, the candle of knowledge is spreading light in the remote and far-flung areas so that the needy and deserving children could excel in life through the ladder of education, he added.