Pakistan has always been active in making policies and signing various international accords to promote education and increase literacy rates. However, these policies have mostly been on paper and no sincere and concerted efforts have been made by successive governments to implement them in letter and spirit or fulfil international pledges. Even the country’s Constitution makes it obligatory for governments to spread literacy among the masses. Article 37 B of the Constitution of Pakistan, under the heading, ‘Promotion of social justice and removal of social evils’, reads: “The state shall remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within a minimum possible period.” The 18th Amendment, introduced into the Constitution of Pakistan in 2010, reads under its sub-clause 25A: “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the ages of five to 16 years in such manner as may be determined by law.” But neither has the law been passed by the provincial Assemblies so far nor any rules of business have been created for implementation of the law to date. Besides these constitutional provisions, the country is also a signatory to many international treaties and conventions, which obligate it to provide equal access to education to all of its citizens without any sign of discrimination on the basis of gender, race, caste, creed or ethnicity. Moreover, Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that everyone has an equal right to education. Education is not only a right but also an indispensible basis for human development. It contributes to fostering peace, democracy and economic growth, as well as improving health and reducing poverty. According to the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), Pakistan was expected to achieve 100 percent net primary enrollment rate by 2015. But the target was missed by a mammoth 43 percent for five to nine-year-old children and by 35 percent for five to 10-year-olds. In other words, net primary enrollment remained at 57 percent for five to nine-year-old children and 65 percent for five to10-year-old children. As far as achieving 100 percent completion rate to grade five is concerned, the target was again missed by eight percent and the retention rate was recorded at 92 percent up to class five by the end of year 2015. In terms of literacy, it was expected that overall 88 percent literacy rate for the 10 plus years’ population would be achieved by 2015. But, the country could achieve only 58 percent literacy rate till the expiry of the deadline. It is a sad reality that Pakistan stands at 160th position in the world when it comes to literacy. As far as the provinces are concerned, no region has shown any extraordinary performance in achieving literacy targets. But, for now, I want to highlight the education scenario of Sindh as some recent reports have shown that over all there was 56 percent literacy rate in 2012 to 2014. The Sindh government roughly spends 21 percent of its budget on education. In 2013-2014, it kept Rs 118 billion for education out of a Rs 617 billion outlay. According to the Sindh Education Information Management System’s 2011-2012 data, there are 50,494 primary, elementary, secondary and higher secondary schools in 23 districts with a total enrollment of 4.33 million children. Of these schools, 91 percent are primary schools claiming 73.6 percent of the provincial education budget. A valuable step has been taken by the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) while signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Education Fund for Sindh (EFS) to improve the quality of education in Sindh. The SEF is making serious efforts to enroll 250,000 additional children in schools from the next academic year. The SEF’s managing director has said that the SEF has already set a target to bring back out-of-school children and the foundation aspired to register around 250,000 additional children in schools by the beginning of the next academic year (2016-2017). The SEF is a non-profit civil society organisation working to uplift the literacy rate and to provide education to disadvantaged children in rural Pakistan. It is one of the leading organizations providing special education to children in rural areas and incorporating an exceptional focus on girls. Recent struggles suggest that the efforts made by the SEF in collaboration with the government and other civil society stakeholders to improve the situation of education in Sindh are commendable. But a lot of effort is still required to achieve this goal. Ghulam Sughra Solangi, a renowned human rights practitioner who works for the betterment of marginalised communities in rural Sindh, believes and defends the Sindh government’s measures for increasing the literacy rate in the region. However, she believes that the country has badly failed to achieve the EFA and MDG targets. She says that in a developing country like Pakistan, education is the only vehicle for upward social mobility of the poor and marginalised people. “However, for the last two decades or so, education has stopped playing a transformative role. As we all know, education is a fundamental human right like food or healthcare,” said Solangi. While concluding I want to share that in today’s world, I believe the benchmark for excellence is education. Moreover, if a country has a distraught academic infrastructure, the chances of survival in the current competitive world are negligible. The illiteracy rate in Pakistan is alarmingly high, which calls for critical attention. The federal and provincial governments need to work together towards the elimination of flaws in the education system of Pakistan. The writer is a social and political activist based in Lahore. Presently, he is linked with a humanitarian organisation working for the betterment of the working class in interior Sindh. He can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com