Education minister vows to boost literacy rate to 70% in four years

Shafqat Mahmood says govt plans to establish 5,000 literacy and skills development centres across Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Sunday said that the government was preparing a plan to boost the literacy rate from 58 to 70 per cent in the next four years.

In order to achieve the task, the education ministry has prepared a plan to launch a country-wide "National Literacy Campaign", he said.

Shafqat Mahmood further said that under the campaign as many as 5,000 literacy and skills development centres would be established in all districts of all four provinces.

While a National Coordination Center at the national level would also be set up to create consensus among all stakeholders regarding the literacy campaign.



Meanwhile, Joint Education Adviser in the Federal Education Ministry Rafiq Tahir, while sharing the details of the campaign, said that the next meeting regarding the proposed literacy campaign would be held on January 16.

Tahir further said that chief ministers of all provinces and provincial education ministers would also be brought on board before launching the campaign.

Under the plan, Tahir said the Ministry of Education will also established the National Curriculum Council (NCC) to achieve the desired goals in the education sector.