New programme to boost literacy

Sitting on a canvas mat in a dark, cold classroom in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), seven-year-old, Reshma tries to read her book. "I want to read so that I can be a doctor," she told IRIN in the town of Mardan, some 150 km northwest of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Although she is being taught in a crumbling government school in Jhandarpur village in Mardan district, she is attending a new non-formal education centre, that authorities hope will meet the huge educational needs in rural Pakistan. Here, some 33 students are crammed into the classroom borrowed from the school for four hours every morning. They don't pay fees or wear a uniform because their families can't afford it. She is one of thousands of children and adults that are being educated under a new literacy campaign by Pakistan's National Commission on Human Development (NCHD). The scheme is aiming for universal adult literacy - a momentous task in a country where every other person cannot read and write. With a population of 1.7 million, Mardan is an important testing ground for the new campaign. Reshma's father is a farmer and is barely able to support his family of nine. If her dreams come true it would be a revolution indeed for the poor and conservative ethnic Pashtun family. "My students are enthusiastic although we have no furniture or heating," Inamullah, Reshma's teacher, told IRIN. "I think this initiative is really working and gives a chance of education for the poorest of the poor," he said. While Inamullah is a volunteer teacher paid US $17 a month, his students, are provided with books by the NCHD. Of the 96 districts in the country, Mardan is the first to benefit from such a programme - with 40,000 children and more than 12,000 adults, receiving education in the district - a model that could be replicated across the country. Before the start of the campaign in September last year, about 45,000 of the five to seven-year-old children did not attend school due to insufficient facilities and education costs that remain out of reach for a large proportion of the population. As a result of NCHD's efforts some 97 percent of them now receive education in the one-teacher centres, such as the one in Jhandarpur. According to NCHD chairman, Nasim Ashraf, while Pakistan's economy grew steadily in recent decades, social development has lagged way behind as half of the country's 140 million population remain illiterate and health care remains very basic in rural areas. "We don't want to build roads, buildings or buy expensive cars. We want to develop the capacities of our people so they can achieve sustainable development," he explained. While state funding for education has remained stagnant at two percent of the GDP over the past decade, the funding for NCHD began with US $2.5 million being raised by 25 Pakistanis, mostly from the United States, who contributed $100,000 each. The government of Pakistan has pledged $32 million and $1.7 million has come from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has promised a further $10 million over the next three years. With literacy broadly defined as those who can read and write, statistics for the country also include millions of Pakistanis who can only recite the Islamic holy book in Arabic or simply write their name. Female literacy levels stand at an abysmal 36 percent - with only 15 percent of rural women receiving education compared to 55 percent of women in rural areas. Gaps also exist among the four provinces with the NWFP and the southwestern Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan, having less than 35 percent literacy levels. Filling such a huge gap remains a daunting challenge. But Aaliya Tahirkheli, a NCHD Programme Officer remained optimistic. "We have a different approach and I believe that is going to work," she told IRIN. Under the new vision, local communities are involved in planning and drawing up their development priorities. This differs from the centralised approach used in Pakistan since independence. NCHD carried out a household survey in Mardan to determine the needs for education and initiated its campaign only after extensive consultations with all stakeholders. Asked if there remained too strong an emphasis on numbers instead of the quality of education, Tahirkheli maintained their major focus was on enhancing the quality of education. "We are working to improve the curriculum and we also train teachers to enhance their capacities," she said, adding that it would also minimise the drop-out rates from schools. Almost one third of children drop out of school before six years of education because of poverty and low standards. "We have just begun, things will definitely improve as we grow and expand into the rest of the country," she hoped. Commenting on the initiative, Maurice Robson, an education expert with the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) in Islamabad maintained that anything that brings children into schools and could influence school enrolment had to be welcomed. "I see this as very positive," he told IRIN. But he noted that the long-term sustainability of the scheme remained a key challenge. "We can all dream up ways of getting kids into schools - that's not difficult. Keeping them there is difficult," he said, adding that putting resources into capacity building was necessary. Meanwhile, in the chilly classroom in Jhandarpur, Reshma and her classmates practiced basic maths with enthusiasm. For Israr, another nine-year-old blind student in the classroom, it's a dream come true. "I want to study and do something for myself and my family," he said.