This year, Pakistan observed International Literacy Day on Sunday, September 8th, with vows to increase government spending on education, ramp up efforts to enroll the country’s 25 million out-of-school children, and increase its literacy rate. The United States has also contributed to the celebrations with the announce of its new Pakistan Reading Project.
With an adult literacy rate of 62.8% and the world’s second highest number of children out of school, Pakistan is currently facing a severe educational crisis. Around half of all enrolled children drop out before completing primary schoo;. Additionally, based on current numbers, Pakistan will not be able to reach the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goal for Education, which strives to achieve universal primary education by 2015.
At an assembly to mark International Literacy Day, Baligh ur Rehman, Pakistan’s Education Minister, announced new government education reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of education, increasing enrollments, and lowering the school dropout rate. The government will also supplement the reforms with a special three-day nationwide campaign to enroll half a million children in school.
The Pakistan Reading Project, the United States’ contribution to the International Literacy Day celebrations, will focus on boosting the reading skills of 3.2 million primary school children. The project will fund reading instruction and reading assessment in 38,000 public schools over the next five years.
International Literacy Day, established by UNESCO in 1966, is celebrated each year on September 8th.
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Written by Carla Drumhiller Smith