Islamabad : Pakistan can follow the Japanese model of non-formal education to enhance low literacy rate but for that, it will have to make great efforts with a special focus on women’s education.
This was observed by NCHD chairperson Razina Alam Khan on Tuesday while addressing senior management of her organization on return from Japan, where she had led a Pakistani delegation during a training workshop on ‘Knowledge Co-Creation Programme (country focus) in Non-formal Education System’ at Japan International Cooperation Agency Headquarters.
The delegation consisted of Sindh education secretary Fazllulah Pechuho, Balochistan secretary of social welfare, special education and literacy Dr. Muhammad Aslam and representatives of different education-related institutes and organizations.
The NCHD chairperson said Japan despite suffering great human and property losses from earthquakes, tsunamis and World War II made swift economic progress in the 20th century due to political, social and spiritual factors supported by education and skill development as intelligent combination of these components, which contributed to the economic growth of Japan.
She said Japanese model of education was modern in content and that it was designed keeping in mind the social needs of the learners, vigorously promoting vocational and technological skills.
Razina Alam said currently, Pakistan’s education statistics reflected a challenging situation as the literacy rate was only around 60 per cent which meant 57 million people couldn’t read and write. She said the out of school children totalled 24 million and the number had declined during the PML-N government. She, however, said the situation forced stakeholders to take corrective measures on emergency basis.
The NCHD chairperson said its regular programs focused on developing collaborations with international organizations working in country on non-formal education and launched many models.
“We and JICA entered into a collaboration to enhance education rate in Pakistan, and have launched ‘100% Literate Islamabad Project’ in which 50 Non-formal Schools are being established for the age group of 8 to 14 years in Islamabad Capital Territory. Already many schools of the project are running successfully in Islamabad,” she said.
Razina Alam said since majority of Pakistani population lived in rural areas and providing access to education to the remote areas was a major problem in the country, it seemed feasible to adopt non-formal approach for education.
“Non-Formal Education can cater well for out of school children and illiterate community in Pakistan. There is a need for the government as well as donors to work together to promote education in rural areas on priority basis,” she said.
The NCHD chairperson said by increasing public expenditure of GDP for education, introducing technical and vocational stream, a uniform curriculum and minimum standards will support to enhance the literacy rate of a country. “We can achieve the targets of vision 2025 and SDGs but there is a need of collective will of International community to ensure necessary support will be provided to developing countries,” she said.
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