PR No. 179 PRESIDENT ARIF ALVI FOR EFFECTIVE STEPS TO ENROL OUT-OF-SCHOOL CHILDREN I

President Dr Arif Alvi has urged the need to take effective steps for enrolling out-of-school children (OSCs) in schools, adding that human resource development was the lynchpin to the socioeconomic development of any country. He underlined the need to improve human development indicators, especially those related to literacy and primary education, besides adopting innovative Information & Communication Technology (ICT) tools for enhancing the skill set of the youth in the country. The President expressed these views while talking to the Chairman of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), Mr Col (R) Dr Amirullah Marwat, who called on him, at Aiwan-e-Sadr, today. Talking to the Chairman, the President emphasized the need to ensure the provision of education to out-of-school children (OSCs), particularly female students, to enhance the country's literacy rate. He added that the number of OSCs in Pakistan was estimated to be around 20 million. The President also urged the Chairman to work on adult education and nonformal basic education to increase the country's literacy rate. He added that the mosques could be used for adult literacy programmes between Fajr and Zuhr prayers with the help of Ulema. Chairman NCHD briefed the President that the Commission was working to promote human development by supporting the government's line departments and different non-governmental organizations working in the social sector. He said that NCHD had launched a mega project of 3000 adult literacy centres with the financial support of the Pakistan Human Development Fund (PHDF) in addition to 100 Madrasa schools based on the Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) syllabus. He also informed the President about NCHD's agreement with BISP to enrol 3 million OSCs in the country. He added that under the initiative, NCHD had enrolled over 1.4 million OSCs so far. Earlier, the Chairman also presented NCHD's Annual Report for the year 2021 to the President.

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