We, as a nation, need to give importance to education, the same way we give importance to food and shelter
KARACHI: Education and literacy are an important part of building an economically and socially stable country. Unesco’s Global Education Digest shows that, as of 2009, nearly 16 per cent of Pakistan’s adult population has completed higher education. According to the UN education department, the percentage of illiteracy was 79 per cent in Pakistan in 2012 and Pakistan was 180th in the list of 221 countries in the world in terms of illiteracy.
As we can see, Pakistan’s literacy rate is still very low and it hasn’t improved much in the recent past. We need to remember what the founder of our nation, the Quaid-e-Azam, said: “Education is a matter of life and death to our nation. The world is moving so fast that if we do not educate ourselves, we will not only be left behind but also will be no more.”
Illiteracy can bring even the most powerful nations down, so if we want to become a developed nation, the government needs to introduce effective programmes with proper implementation that cater to emergency that we face in the education sector. We, as a nation, need to give importance and top priority to education, the same way we give importance to food and shelter, in order to make Pakistan move forward and prosper.
Sara Najam
Published in The Express Tribune, October 31st, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
