Skilled labour: Punjab embarks on drive to enhance worker literacy

Project aimed at increasing productivity, work ethics.

FAISALABAD: The Punjab government, in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation, has launched a campaign to enhance literacy among industrial workers to enhance their productivity and work ethics.

Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education Department Project Director Sajjad Ahmad Saquib said this in a meeting with Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Engineer Suhail bin Rashid here on Friday.

The visiting team comprised Abaidur Rehman Usmani, a senior board member at the Employers Federation of Pakistan, and Rabia Razzaque, project manager Employment and Training, International Labour Organisation, Islamabad.



Elaborating the project, Saquib said the literacy rate in Pakistan was 60%, which was the lowest in the region, excluding Bangladesh. Out of Punjab’s population of about 96 million, 31 million fall in the illiterate category, of which 26 million are adult.

After the 18th Amendment to the constitution, he said, the responsibility of education had been shifted to the provinces and, according to the UN Millennium Development Goals, Pakistan had to improve the literacy rate to 88% by 2012.

Punjab has embarked on the drive to enhance literacy among industrial workers and open a number of non-formal literacy centres with cooperation and assistance of the FCCI in Faisalabad.

Speaking earlier, the FCCI president stressed the need for increasing the literacy rate among industrial workers in an effort to improve productivity and work ethics.



He also highlighted the problems besetting the industries in relation to government institutions.

In the end, it was decided that preliminary work would be initiated to open non-formal literacy centres in various areas of Faisalabad and a memorandum of understanding was expected to be signed to step up the pace of work.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2013.

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