Adult literacy project

The launching of Rs 4.84 billion adult literacy programmes by the federal and provincial governments to attain the targets set under of the Education For All (EFA) project by 2015, represents yet another brave attempt to achieve the goal that has so far proved elusive.
Similar initiatives in the past at best met with only partial success despite all the media hype that preceded their launch. According to a Recorder Report, the federal government has provided Rs 2 billion to the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) to set up 230,000 literacy centres in the next five years, in addition to 22,542 centres it has already opened.
NWFP and Punjab governments have allocated Rs 1.98 billion and 863 million respectively for this purpose. About 13,000 adult literacy centres under "Literate Punjab Programme" have also been opened in public and private sectors with special emphasis on promotion of literacy among women.
A high dropout rate, lack of capacity building of stakeholders, and rampant poverty have been listed as the main impediments to implementation of these programmes. According to the available data, about six million children of school-going age and 52 million adults are currently deprived of the benefit of education in Pakistan.
The figure is quite alarming, particularly when many countries in our neighbourhood like China, Iran and India have secured impressive results through launching crash literacy programmes by mobilising countrywide cadres of educated youth who went from village to village to spread the light of knowledge. Countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have fared quite well in the race for literacy.
The question arises: why have we failed where countries with less resources than ours have succeeded? Our experience shows that lack of commitment and inconsistency in policies, poor utilisation of available resources largely because of corruption and incompetence, and above all, lack of political will have been mainly responsible for the current sad state of affairs.
Other causes often listed in this regard are the absence of expertise required to conceive, plan and implement programmes; ad hocism, shortage or non-availability of funds, and absence of patronage by political parties and other stakeholders.
The essentially anti-education mindset of our feudal ruling elite, which has held sway over the country since its creation has done incalculable harm to Pakistan. Secondly, the education bureaucracy, like bureaucracies of many other state institutions, has been putting inordinate stress on non-development expenditure, thereby starving the development programmes of funds.
Misallocation of funds has thus been a major cause of our failure in education sector. Yet another has been the duality in resource allocation, with the gap between the rich and poor segments of society widening rapidly. Perhaps the most important cause of our failure in education sector has been its commercialisation, with the mad race to "get rich quick" triggered by the ruling elite serving as an "ideal." Politics of pelf and plots has done the rest.
It should be clear by now that only trained and dedicated teachers fired by missionary zeal can pull the nation out of the abyss of ignorance. The latest literacy campaign, if properly implemented, can help us develop cadres to serve us later as the stepping-stones to development and progress.
We have never lagged behind in policy formulations. What we have in fact lagged behind is the implementation of these policies in letter and spirit. Let us focus on this goal.