ISLAMABAD: Chairwoman Senator Razina Alam Khan has said that literacy is vital for improving human indicators in the country. She said this while addressing the Operational Review Meeting, which was attended by all the provincial heads and head of departments at the NCHD head office. “Education being the basis of human civilisations, benefits societies in many ways, as a major driver for economic growth and human development and also empowers individuals by giving a better understanding for living a healthy, prosperous and peaceful life,” she said. “People who are illiterate lack decision making power and are less likely to participate in civic life. Hence, human indicators are all linked with education. We need to introduce education as an element for improving human indicators; we can say literacy plays a vital role in improving just that,” Razina Alam Khan. She said that the government’s efforts could not meet the target of 90 percent literacy rate, as we are moving at a very slow pace. “We need to take some fast track initiatives to achieve 90 percent literacy rate,” she maintained. All the participants from provinces presented ongoing programmes in their respective domains and a detailed discussion was held about enrollment campaigns, passing out of the students of 5th grade and various success stories. The issue of the raise of honorarium for teachers was raised by the provincial heads and it was decided that the issue will be taken with the government for approval. “All the policy makers need to focus on 40 percent illiterate population and a multi-pronged strategy should be adapted to approach these 57 million illiterates,” the chairperson informed. “The NCHD is developing a comprehensive roadmap called the National Plan of Action with the help of provincial governments for encompassing mechanism for the achievement of education targets set in Vision 2025 and SDGs,” she further informed. She said that the NPA was going to be launched very soon and serious efforts from all stakeholders working in the field of education including government departments/institutions, NGOs, INGOs and donors will be required to work on the set targets of NPA in true spirits. The NCHD’s main agenda is to support districts by providing access to out of school children by increasing enrollment rate and decreasing the dropout rate. A total of 5,949 schools all over the country are working to fulfill this requirement. It was further informed that NCHD is working on the enhancement of non-formal schools as another initiative for mainstreaming of 6.4 million children of age 10-16, who have missed the schools. In order to support human indicators through education, school health programmes and health and hygiene sessions along with free medical camps will be organised in functional literacy centres through volunteerism for community development. A National Training Institute for non-formal education was being strengthened to prepare a pool of professionals for literacy, she observed. The chairperson also informed the participants that NCHD will introduce performance based incentives to the employees. The director general informed the ORM that disbursement of staff salary from AGPR had begun partially for the staff who had submitted all their documents. She also informed that the provision of medical facility to the NCHD staff was being introduced as well. The provincial heads on behalf of employees, appreciated the efforts of the chairperson and the director general of NCHD being done by them for the welfare of employees. All stakeholders being Pakistani and Muslim should support the government by playing their role as an individual for achieving 90 percent literacy rate in the country to improve human indicators, she stressed. Published in Daily Times, February 15th 2018.