 District Education Profile 2011-12
Pakistan Social & Living Standards Measurement Survey 2011-12
Pakistan Education Statistics 2011-12
Literacy initiate for empowerment (LIFE) webiste
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1) Policy Advocacy
Three parliamentarian forums on literacy were held in Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore in 2006 and 2007. The low budget allocation to the literacy (0.75% of the education budget) and serious literacy situations were addressed by parliamentarians, government officials, and other participants. In addition, the need assessment has been carried out by the Ministry of Education. The results of the assessment will be disseminated and will be the baseline to develop the country operational master plan for literacy.
With the initiative of the state minister, the national adult education seminar will be organized in May, 06 to promote the awareness on the literacy.
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2) Curriculum/ Materail Development
Development of the National Curriculum of Pakistan has so far not formulated an official curriculum for literacy. In its recent policy documents, Ministry of Education has identified this gap and envisaged to develop national literacy curriculum. UNESCO has come forward to assist Ministry of Education in the preparation of national curriculum for literacy, and an assessment framework. Process started during mid 2006. UNESCO is extending technical and financial support for this work. International expertise available at UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (Hamburg, Germany) have also been mobilized. Education Sector Reforms Assistance (ESRA) financed by USAIDS, has also joined this endeavour. All national and provincial stakeholders, including NCHD, Provincial Directorates of Literacy, and major NGOs have been involved in the process. The national curriculum for literacy consists of Basic literacy, Functional literacy and Income Generation. These assessment tools will facilitate literacy organizations towards harmonization of their literacy examinations, and may also be used for various surveys to assess actual levels of literacy in various areas and target groups.
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After completion of basic literacy course, the neo-literates need to be offered opportunities to continue their learning. Otherwise, they are most likely to relapse into illiteracy. There is a shortage of reading material for learners and neo-literates in simple and easy to understand language. UNESCO is supporting the development, production, and dissemination of exemplary material on life skills and income generation skills.
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In collaboration with National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), a survey has been undertaken to identify educational needs of the learners and neo-literates of literacy programmes.
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3) Capacity building
In Pakistan, there does not exist an institute for training and research in the areas relating to adult literacy. Most of the literacy organizations have not developed regular mechanisms for capacity building of their field functionaries. Success and quality of on going and future literacy programmes can be enhanced by strengthening professional capacity of literacy managers, facilitators, trainers, and material developers. UNESCO has launched a comprehensive programme to develop capacity of literacy organizations and their personnel. A training package is being prepared on pertinent skills like planning and management of literacy programmes at various levels, strategies for community mobilization, adult psychology, techniques of teaching reading, writing, and numeracy to adult learners, lesson planning and class management, post literacy and functional literacy programmes, assessment, supervision, monitoring and evaluation etc. By using these training manuals, UNESCO plans to support a series of training workshops at provincial and district levels for capacity building of various cadres of literacy personnel.
In addition, UNESCO with its partner has develop the training modules for literacy teachers and facilitators. With these modules, training sessions/workshops will be held at the provincial and district levels in 2007 and 2008.
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4) Piloting of Community learning centers and CCT
The process of socio-economic uplift can be accelerated through effective involvement of local communities in the development interventions. Community Learning Centre or CLC is a place where multiple opportunities of learning are made available for various target groups, according to their learning needs. Development agencies and local community jointly contribute for the establishment and functioning of such a learning centre. In some other countries of Asia, the approach of Community Learning Centres have been successfully experimented. UNESCO is endeavoring to introduce the concept of Community Learning Centres in Pakistan as well. CLCs could serve as a vehicle to promote literacy and improve quality of lives of people in under developed areas. UNESCO is extending technical and financial support to literacy organizations for piloting of CLC approach in selected communities.
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Intn'l Literacy Day -
8 Sept. 2006
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ICT for literacy:
The idea is to make use of digital technology in making lessons more interesting and provide an additional skill to the learner to improve his/her way of life. Pakistan's Government is quickly realising the importance of using technology to keep up with the rest of the world and is promoting its use specifically in the education sector.
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In Pakistan, ICT based literacy kit has been developed. The kit includes software to facilitate an illiterate person to be literate thought interactive learning with attractive audio and visuals. Once developed, the kit will be piloted at literacy ICT centers in urban and semi-urban areas.
Similar activities have been implemented in India and Bangladesh. In Oct 2007, E-9 countries (9 highly populated countries) will meet in India to exchange experiences and discuss its effective strategies for expansion.
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5) Resource Database of Literacy and Non Formal Education
The main objective is to accumulate and compile documents and materials of literacy and continuing education in Urdu, other local languages and English as a national resource database. All documents and materials in soft copy (PDF or MS WORD) will be saved in a CD and hosted on a web site. Each document will be briefly introduced on the web pages (html pages) and easy to retrieve. The resource will respond to all needs of NFE planners and practitioners at all levels in the country in an effort to promote literacy and continuing education.
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UNESCO 1995-2014