Concern at literacy centres closure

Published October 14, 2008

LAHORE, Oct 13: The Punjab Literacy Forum has expressed its grave concern at the closure of a large number of adult literacy centres rendering over 80,000 workers jobless, besides jolting the non-formal adult education promotion programme.

A resolution passed at a meeting of the forum, which represents scores of literacy NGOs of the province held with its president Inayatullah in the chair here on Monday, said that the decision of the National Commission for Human development (NHCD) to abandon the centres was “tragic and myopic”, dealing a serious blow to the efforts of promoting adult literacy and non-formal education programme.

The resolution urged the government to review its decision and restore the centres to continue the adult education efforts.

Addressing the meeting, Inayatullah, a former cabinet secretary, said if there were some financial irregularities allegedly committed by the NCHD as pointed out in its audit report, they could be rectified and action taken against the persons responsible for them instead of closing down such a large number of adult literacy centres and throwing thousands of their qualified and experienced workers out of jobs.

He said the literacy rate was already much low in Pakistan as compared with other countries of the South Asian region and the closure of the literacy centres would further aggravate the situation.

He emphasised the importance of consolidating the useful work being done by various NGOs in the field of non-formal education. He said the forum had decided to hold a workshop by the end of next month to discuss the methodology of strategies adopted by these NGOs for literacy development. He said much work was being done in Punjab, which could be a model for other provinces in this respect.

Lahore EDO Asif Tarar deplored that the policy-making bureaucrats belonging to the central service and most of the politicians had no concept of non-formal education and its importance in raising the literacy rate and in literacy development programmes.

He said the forum and various NGOs engaged in the literacy development campaign should form a think-tank which should apprise the chief minister, chief secretary and other relevant authorities of the importance of non-formal education in the overall development of the country.

Prof Dr Mumtaz Akhtar of Punjab University’s Institute of Education Research said the institution had decided to introduce MA class in non-formal education.

She said it would be the first course of its kind in Pakistan as against India where such courses of adult education were being taught in no less than 40 universities.

Forum vice-chairman David Masih told the meeting that his NGO had started an adult education programme to make illiterate persons literate in two months only.

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