NCHD Celebrates International Literacy Day 2011
 

On the occasion of International Literacy Day (8th September, 2011) National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) organized a walk with collaboration of UNESCO, to highlight the plight of illiterate people in Pakistan. Hundreds of Children and civil society workers participated in this walk. They were holding play cards / banners inscribed with the slogans urging upon the national and international entities to work for increasing literacy rate in Pakistan as it is the key to progress and prosperity of the poor masses of the country.

This year the theme of International Literacy Day is “Literacy for Peace”.

NCHD Chairperson Dr. Nafisa Shah MNA, who led the walk, said that inequalities, stigmatization and discrimination linked to wealth, gender, ethnicity, language and location are the curses of illiteracy. She said, “In Pakistan, the situation of primary education is pathetic. There are 19 million children of primary school age and half of them are still out of school.”

“One of the prime mandates of NCHD is to help Pakistan to achieve the Millennium Development Goal-2- by 2015 and in this regard, the Commission has prioritized “Universal Primary Education”, she said and added that comprehensive reforms and dedicated efforts are required to change this scenario.

Director General NCHD Zulfiqar Ahmad has said that NCHD is a leading agency for literacy in Pakistan and it has so far established 145,760 Adult Literacy Centers in 134 districts of Pakistan and enrolled more than 3.2 million people (90% of them are female).

He said, “This program has also received International Reading Association Literacy Award from UNESCO as one of the best practicing model in the world. Along with it, NCHD has also established 12000 feeder schools where Poor out of school children are enrolled.”