Daily Times

Sir: Pakistan is a country that is counted among the 10 countries having the largest population. However, it is not something to be proud of because as population keeps increasing, so does our illiteracy rate. The government of Pakistan cuts the budget of education and spends it on defence and buying luxuries for officials and bureaucrats. The ‘stated’ defence budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 is likely to be Rs 495 billion, an increase of Rs 53 billion or 12 percent over the previous year’s ‘stated’ budget.

Sadly, the budget for education never goes above 3.5 percent, which is pathetic. The budget for health is only 1.3 percent. Pakistan’s growth rate is only 2.4 percent annually because of the low literacy rate. Since most of the population is not educated, they do not have any jobs; as a result, the growth rate is low and dependency rate high. The poor cannot afford sending their children to school. Besides, they want their children to work as child labour so that they could add to the family’s income. In Pakistan, a majority of women remain uneducated because of it being a patriarchal society where the male dominates the family and makes all rules and regulations. I request NGOs and the government to work towards education so that the literacy rate should increase many times over and Pakistan can achieve good economic growth and compete in the world.

I also request families to encourage their daughters to pursue education as much as possible and if not that, then at least until matriculation, so that they could be counted as literate and help in boosting Pakistan’s literacy rate.

SHAHZAD NISAR SHAIKH

Karachi