The government would launch a project "Improving Human Development Indicators in Pakistan" at a cost of Rs 8.15 billion across the country to achieve 86 per cent literacy rate by 2015. The project would comprise sub-project-1 and sub-project-2 for establishment of 98,100 Basic Literacy Centers (ALCs) in all provinces including ICT, Fata, Gilgit- Baltistan and AJK for the target bracket of 11 to 45 years to make 245,2500 persons literate, mainly women.
There would be no foreign grant or loan for this 3-year project, the federal government would provide funds with the support of National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) for the project.
The government for Universal Primary Education Programme would provide Rs 1.438 billion to Punjab, Rs 1.453 billion to Sindh, Rs 573.43 million to Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Rs 856.82 million to Balochistan, Rs 34.57 million to Fata, Rs 45.36 million to Gilgit-Baltistan, Rs 173.106 million to AJK, Rs 16.033 million to ICT etc.
Similarly for Basic Literacy Programme, the government would provide Rs 718.73 million to Punjab, Rs 662.118 million to Sindh, Rs 555.045 million to Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Rs 379.57 million to Balochistan, Rs 6.246 million to ICT, Rs 104.45 million to Fata etc.
In this regard, the NCHD would provide Rs 521.552 million (in cash) for universalisation of Primary Education, Rs 283.36 million for Adult Literacy Programme, Rs 264.44 million for Basic Literacy Project, Rs 18.92 million for Post Literacy Project and Rs 10.057 million for monitoring and evaluation.
Sub-project-1 would support systemic refinement to improve operational system and governance in Education Departments at provincial/area department leading to 90% intake rate in primary schools, with less than 20% dropouts in the first three grades in primary schools.
Sub-project-2 would focus on Adult Literacy Programme and Post Literacy Programme in 134 districts/administrative units in all provinces including Islamabad capital Territory (ICT), Fata, Gilgit- Baltistan and AJK. According to documents available with Business Recorder, the project fits well into the over all objectives set forth for the education sector in the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF).
The MTDF recognises that Pakistan faces some major challenges in providing education in schools and beyond school for its growing population in line with their diversifying needs. Although the requirement for an educated populace and workforce is greater than ever before, yet Pakistan's record on a number of key indicators of educational performance is poor.
Pakistan attained schooling with a total public-private sector enrolment of 25.9 million by 2004-05; but high dropout rates, teacher shortages and absenteeism and gender gap are still too high to be acceptable. Under this project, during planning phase with provinces the education code will be refined and job descriptions of all staff of the education department will be improved in line with the refined processes.
The aim of the post programme is to consolidate the basic literacy skills of speaking, reading, writing, numeracy and problem-solving and at the same time, transform these learners into an educated 'Whole Person' who is a productive socio-economic asset to the community.
In this regard, the National Commission for Human Development has designed a six-month post literacy programme, to be implemented in a mission mode. The post literacy programme would serve as an umbrella under which a host of development activities are taken up; skill development forms a major component of post literacy; enterprising line department will be able to dovetail skill development within innovative development schemes, during the post literacy phase the linkages with other departments especially with health, social welfare, rural development and environment are very important.