The Elementary Education Foundation (EEF) NWFP and National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), an autonomous body under the federal government, entered into an agreement for implementing the NWFP Literacy Programme for the whole of the province. Under this programme, a total of 18,000 literacy centres will be established by October 2006. In the first phase, 6,000 literacy centres will be opened from January 2005.
This programme intends to impart literacy skills to 180,000 persons by June 2005. This literacy programme would target all persons above nine years of age. For this purpose of implementing the literacy programme, the entire province has been divided into 15 sectors covering all the 24 districts in phases. Completion of this project will result in making 1.8 million persons literate.
Under the agreement, NCHD is providing 180,000 sets of literacy books worth Rs 10 million to the provincial government, free of cost. In addition, the NCHD is also providing technical assistance to EEF, for providing on-job training to the management and field staff of EEF, through a cadre of literacy professionals trained by NCHD, at its own cost, as part of the federal government support to the provincial government.
The agreement was signed by Zulfikar Ahmad, chief operating officer of NCHD and Muhammad Mushtaq Ahmad Jadoon, managing director, EEF NWFP. The ceremony for signing the agreement was attended by CM Akram Khan Durrani, Maulana Fazal Ali Haqqani, provincial education minister, Dr Nasim Ashraf, chairman NCHD and minister of state Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi, chief secretary NWFP Sher Zada Khan, secretary education NWFP and Onder Youcer, Resident Representative UNDP Pakistan.