Illiteracy in Pakistan

INTRODUCTION
The term Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write or in other words the ability to
use a language for reading, writing, listening and speaking.

In Pakistan the literacy rate is very low. Those who are above the age of 15 years and can
read and write are considered to be literate in Pakistan. According to 2005 estimate 54%
percent of the population is literate, 63% male and 37% female.

It has been over six decades since the independence, yet Pakistan has not been successful
in achieving even 50% of literacy rate.

It is very important to have a sound and growing educational system in order to have
development. Education is the basic tool which is required to help a nation progress.
Pakistan, unfortunately lacks in this particular area and should take meaningful steps for
developing education sector. Over years, many governments have launched different plans
to improve the education level in the country but these programs have resulted in very
little improvement. A low literacy level still prevails in the country despite all these efforts.

Among the SAARC Nations, Pakistan is ranked at 6th and at the 159th position among the
174 World countries. According to a Government Official Report, the literacy rate in
Pakistan is 54%.

Reasons for the Low Literacy Rate

Pakistan is facing problems from social, cultural, religious, political, psychological and
economic spheres. If one problem is tried to be solved, other proves to be more gigantic in
proportion and without solution of these problems and without provision of a viable
mechanism, all the efforts of sustainability are not more than just a dream.

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Following can be the main causes of low literacy in Pakistan:

1. Poverty ( the menace ): Pakistan is a third world country. The main reason for this
classification is poverty and low literacy rate. Although Pakistan is an agriculture based
country and a high number of population is engaged in this sector, it has not been able
to help uplift the society and poverty still remains a huge problem thus hindering the
development of the country. Almost 35% of the total population is living under the
poverty line. In such a condition people are unable to have a bare minimum of life’s
necessities and education is considered unattainable. According to UNICEF, 17.6%
children work to support their families. So, in such conditions, role and support of
Government is extremely important. However Pakistan’s government is not seen taking
any appropriate steps to improve the ongoing situation

2. Massively increasing Population: The massive increase in the population of the Pakistan
is another main reason why development is not taking place. Many people cannot
provide their children with education and more importantly with food. They would
rather send their children to work and earn than send them to schools to acquire
education. This results in a decrease in the literacy rate for the whole country. Also,
people living in the rural areas are deprived of the basic infrastructure and they don’t
have any proper schools and lack the teaching resource.

3. The kingdom of Feudal lords and Wadera system: Fuedal system is prevailent in many
parts of the country. This system is another reason why education and literacy rate is
not increasing. Because of a high control of these fuedal lords, education is not allowed
for lower status workers or the people of the village. Moreover female proportion is
very low compared to male as they are not allowed to be enrolled in schools due to
social and religious views.

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4. Low allocation of Budget: At present, Pakistan is among those 12 countries of the world
which are spending less than 2% of GDP on education, whereas, china is spending
2.82%, India 3.5% and countries like USA, UK, Japan and Italy are spending more than
5% of GDP on education. The Government of Pakistan should take steps to allocate
more to the education sector. According to Education for All Global Monitoring Report
2008 by UNESCO, Pakistan is spending 2.4% of its GDP on education against the
UNESCO-recommended norm of a minimum of 4% and against 3.8% spent by India,
7.5% by Maldives, 4.7% by Iran and 3.4% by Nepal.

Literacy Rates in South Asian Countries (2003)

Countries Literacy Rates (%)

Bangladesh 40.6
Bhutan 47.0
India 58.0
Maldives 97.0
Nepal 42.9
Pakistan 44.0
Sri Lanka 91.9
South Asia 56.3
Developing Countries 74.5

Source: Human Development Report 2003.

The extremely low level of public investment is the major cause of the poor performance of
Pakistan’s education sector. Public expenditure on education remained less than 2% of
GNP before 1984-85. In recent years it has increased to 2.2%. In addition, the allocation of
government funds is skewed towards higher education so that the benefits of public
subsidiary on education are largely reaped by the upper income class. Many of the highly

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educated go abroad either for higher education or in search of better job opportunities.
Most of them do not return and cause a large public loss.

5. Province-wise and Gender-wise details: According to province-wise and gender-wise detail,

the Government Statistics estimated that 60.8% population is literate in Punjab province. The
literacy rate for male and female are 70% and 51% respectively, in Punjab. In NWFP, 47.4%
population of the province is literate, out of which 63% are male and 30.8% female. The literacy
rate of Sindh province is about 5.15% out of which 60.5% are male and 42.5% female. The 34%
population of Baluchistan are literate and the literacy rate of male and female is about 45% and
23% respectively.

Other main issues are:

 Male dominated Society causes low literacy in Pakistan
 Larger gap between lower and upper class
 Agricultural economy leads to low literacy, people tend to fulfill basic necessities and do
not emphasize on education.
 Disparities between Public and Private and Education Institutes
 Lack of schools in rural areas etc.

UNESCO Report
Education is the main vehicle for socio-economic development. Pakistan is blessed with natural and
human resources, but these resources can only be harnessed and exploited fully when citizens are
educated and skilled. Unfortunately, about half of adult population in Pakistan cannot read and
write. With respect to Human Development Index, Pakistan has been placed by UNDP at 136th
position:

Pakistan and Education Development Index (2008)

Country Maldives Iran Myanmar India Bangladesh Nepal Pakistan

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EDI Ranking 74 90 94 105 107 110 120

Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, Annex Table No 1, page 203

Pakistan is sixth most populous country of the world. Its young population is increasing, and
government needs to invest more on education and training. Due to rapid population growth and
inability of the formal education system to bring all children into school, illiterate population has
increased from 22 million in 1961 to 50 million by 1998. It is feared that by 2008, illiterate
population in Pakistan may have risen to 50 million +.

Ratio of budget indicates the level of importance given by a nation to the education. Historically,
Pakistan has been spending less on education, as compared to other countries in the region.
UNESCO has set the norm of a minimum of 4% of GDP for education. The following table provides
information on education budget as percentage of GDP.

Education budget as % of GDP

Country Iran India Bangladesh Maldives Nepal Pakistan

Education budget 4.7% 3.8% 2.4% 7.5% 3.4% 2.4%

However, Pakistan has to go a long way. Keeping in view the gigantic size of problems of
illiteracy and out of school children in Pakistan, all these efforts need to be augmented and
sustained during the next regime also.

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Recommendations

Pakistan is a developing country, with a number of problems seeking solutions. Although it is

abundant with human and natural resources but due to lack of proper planning and unstable
political situations, it is still lagging behind many other developing countries. A recent survey has
found that among the developing countries of the Asia Pacific region, Pakistan is at the bottom of
the literacy rate as two out of three Pakistanis are illiterate. Education is foremost important factor
for development of any country. Following can be the some suggestion regarding reduction in
illiteracy.

1. The real CHAOS (Law and Order): Pakistan has real issues regarding law and order
situation. People are taking law in their hands. Police is not so effective and it has completely
failed in keeping peace within country. This state of chaos has created real problems for
Pakistan regarding businesses and attracting foreign investment.

2. Judicial Independence: Free and independent judiciary ensures the provision of justice to
people and it helps to create trust in government institutions. Pakistan is politically and
economically dominated by feudal system, which is basic hurdle in path of progress of
improving literacy rate. When judiciary will be strong it would insure the punishment of land
lords for their bad doings, and it will help common people to get education.

3. From Terror to Terrorism: Terrorism is the worst form of illiteracy when people do not
have sense to realize the importance of innocent lives which are lost in the terrorist activities.
Some people consider poverty as one of the major causes of terrorism. If people are given
enough education to cope up poverty, this might enable people becoming less hopeful and going
for the bold steps such as getting involved in wrong or criminal activities. In Pakistan,
government is making its best efforts to reduce the illiteracy rate as a result of which the
standard of education in Pakistan is increasing day by day. However terrorism will take time to
remove.

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4. Conditional transfers payments: On individual level Government of Pakistan can issue

conditional transfer payments to poor people with the condition of sending their children to
school.

5. Right to Free education: Pakistan can increase its enrollment rate by giving free education
to all people as it is mention in constitution.

6. Bridging the Gap between educational attainment and skills: Although Pakistan’s
universities produce students with degrees but these students have low skills regarding human
capital and practical work. This gape should be reduced.

7. Lack of Continuation of Policies: According to the Education Sector Reforms Programme

(ESRP)
ESRP survey, "Two out of every three Pakistani adults are illiterate; 45.3 percent people have
no access to early childhood care and education; 40.3 percent have no access to primary schools
and 76.1 percent to secondary school. It shows that 58.9 percent of the Pakistani population is
still illiterate.
It said that Pakistan’s primary school teachers are overworked and under-trained as there is
only one teacher for 51 students at an average.
In 2001, the government finalized an Action Plan 2002-2006 under the ESRP. The plan aimed at
increasing the overall literacy rate from 49 percent in 2000-01 to 60 percent by 2005-06; the
primary school enrolment rate from 66 to 76 percent; middle school enrolment rate from 47.5
to 55 percent; the secondary school enrolment from 29.5 to 40 percent and higher education
enrolment from 2.6 to 5 percent.

The only problem with Pakistan is that we can’t formulate a proper plane which can be
implemented for few years. Rather we kept on changing planes from year to year.

Some other measures which can be used are:

a) Availability of physical facilities (sheer existence of schools or sufficient numbers of
classrooms, correlated with the adequate number of teachers.
b) Increasing Youth Literacy through Formal Schooling and Non-formal Education.

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c) Rightly using the funds given by foreign donor financial institution. Government should
ensure check and balance in usage of these funds for rightly purpose.
d) Non-formal Education for Young Adults and the Workforce.
e) From Policy to Action: Implementing the Strategies: the government should implement the
policies and strategies. For this purpose the policy makers should partnerships with UN and
other international organization and seek help from them.
f) At last the political parties of Pakistan should take this as a serious issue and take
instrumental steps to increase the literacy rate if Pakistan is aiming to progress in real
terms.

Conclusion
Human capital is an important asset and its development is vital for sustained economic
progress. Literacy level is an important indicator of human development.
Pakistan’s case in this regard is far from satisfactory. It lags behind even among the developing
countries. In addition, there exist large disparities in literacy rates across various regions of the
country. Various steps have been taken by government to identify the areas which are still lagging
behind other parts of the country in terms of literacy levels and are unable to play their role in the
development of human capital of the country. Various works regarding this issue in Pakistan
indicate that more than three-fourth districts of the country are under represented in terms of
literacy levels. This includes a large portion of Baluchistan, Southern part of Punjab, the rural Sindh,
and upper NWFP. A large proportion of literate population is concentrated in the national and
provincial capitals. In general, Sindh lags behind in case of rural areas whereas NWFP in case of
females. Baluchistan is the province that needs the greatest attention. The analyses also indicate a
close association between literacy levels and general economic development. Areas with low
literacy levels are, in general, also among the less economically underdeveloped areas. An
encouraging sign is the general decline in disparities in literacy levels over time. Moreover, the least
literate areas have shown a significant improvement over time. However, these areas still require a
great deal of effort to be come at par with other parts of the country.

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References:
1. http://www.blurtit.com/q111379.html
2. http://www.chowrangi.com/illiteracy-overpopulation-paksitans-major-problems.html
3. http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/12-
bane+of+illiteracy--bi-03
4. http://www.interface.edu.pk/students/Aug-08/Pakistan-lingering-illiteracy.asp

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