Literacy Day: Speakers call for reducing disparity

ISLAMABAD: Speakers have asked the government to take urgent steps to reduce the gap between male and female education rates to achieve millennium development goals (MDGs). They said that political will and collective efforts were required to implement laws dealing with education. They were speaking on Monday at a panel discussion on the status of education and challenges in Pakistan to mark International Literacy Day. The event was organised by the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi in collaboration with Oxfam, Foundation Open Society Institute and civil society organisations. The panellists included physicist Dr A H Nayyar, senior educationists and civil society advocates Arshad Mehmood, Manizeh Bano, Zafarullah Khan and Salman Zaidi. Speakers were of the view that civil society should push the government for the implementation of laws pertaining to free and compulsory education.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2014.