Despite claims of education reforms by previous federal & provincial governments literacy rate in Pakistan is only 58% which is lower than previous 60%. This is alarming that illiteracy in Pakistan is 42%.
According to Alif Ailaan existing government schools fail to meet the requirement of the country. Even if they work efficiently with all given resources:
- Primary Schools will meet 88% need of the country
- Middle Schools will meet 38% need of the country
- High schools will meet 42% need of the country
Pakistan Education Statistics revealed that more than 22.8 million school going aged children are out of school. This statistic is shocking which is largely ignored by all previous governments of Pakistan.
Though their have been improvements by all provinces such as Punjab, KPK, Sindh and Balochistan. Overall the performance is lower than other countries in the region such as India where literacy rate is 74%.
According to UNESCO gross enrolment ratio for primary schools is 97.7% but the drop out ratio is very high which is reflected by enrolment ratio of Secondary schools which is only 46.1%.
Another problem is the gap and difference between male and female literacy rate. This is why foreign NGOs are more interested in promoting education of girls.
Education gets only 1.6% of our grand budget which reflects the priority of our government. This is far below the Rs. 2.22 trillion debt servicing (interests) which we pay on foreign loans.
Education is considered important for the development of any country. It is key for prosperity of any country or nation and many reports have linked GDP growth with the increase in literacy rate.
We have lacked behind not only in our region but around the globe. The top 10 countries with highest literacy rates are:
- Democratic Republic of Korea 100%
- Latvia 99.9%
- Estonia 99.8%
- Lithuania 99.8%
- Azerbaijan 99.8%
- Poland 99.8%
- Kazakhstan 99.8%
- Tajikistan 99.8%
- Armenia 99.8%
- Ukraine 99.8%
