Adult Literacy

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Achievements

The Adult Literacy program is currently operational in 122 districts. NCHD has been able to add value to the Literacy efforts of the Government in all the four provinces of Pakistan during 2002 - 2008 by:

• Establishing and completing 120,263 Adult Literacy Centres(2002-08).

• Making about 2,555,606 adult learners literate, comprising nearly 95% women to improve Gender Equity. This is a direct outcome of NCHD's efforts in mobilizing the female population in a bid to redress the imbalance in educational opportunities between men and women.

• NCHD literacy program was awarded the prestigious UNESCO International Reading Association Literacy Prize in 2006 for increasing the literacy ratio in Pakistan.

• NCHD ran a Mass Literacy Campaign on the basis of an agreement with the Government of NWFP (via Elementary Education Foundation), providing a very clear example of the government ownership of NCHD's successful and role model literacy program.

• NCHD's concluded an agreement with AKRSP to promote Literacy by co-launching the Literacy initiative in 6 districts in the Northern Areas, providing a milestone in the provision of literacy to less developed areas of the country.

• Since August 2006, NCHD has been declared as the Lead Agency of the Ministry of Education for Adult Literacy in Pakistan.

ADULT LITERACY

In the Adult Literacy Program, the community not only provides space for these centers but some of the literate individuals also provide their services as teachers. A major emphasis of NCHD’s Adult Literacy Program is to provide learning opportunities to the illiterate female population (11 - 45 years). Its innovative strategy involves social mobilization to identify keen learners and motivated teachers from within the community. NCHD implements this program in partnership with Provincial Education Departments.

	“Being a lead agency for literacy in Pakistan, NCHD mass literacy program is ensuring that the literacy rate in Pakistan is increased at 3.3% to achieve the MDG number 4 from the current 53% (2006) to 86% by the year (2015).”
	<< An elderly woman learning to read and write through NCHD’s Adult Literacy Program

OBJECTIVES

• Achieve 86% literacy rate by 2015, as per Education for All (EFA) Plan of the Government of Pakistan by emphasis on female literacy.

These objectives are being achieved through the following activities:

• Setting up Adult Literacy Centres (ALCs) with 25 learners each, spread all over the target expanse of the district
• Community mobilization to provide space for centres, teacher and to promote attendance by local people
• Provision of books
• Paying teacher's salaries.

The Salient features of Adult Literacy Program:

• The Adult Literacy Program targets adults with age cohort 11-45 years in line with the international definition of adult literate population of 10+years.

• Based on a specialized phonetics-based module, this program aims to impart literacy to those who have never enrolled into a school or dropped out of school before acquiring literacy skills.

• Special learning methodology utilizes small letters recognition as its base of emphasis.

• The curriculum is designed in such a way that it corresponds to the curriculum of the children from classes 1-3 in primary schools.

• The syllabus books are designed to involve learners' aspirations of easy, functional and quick learning - leading to a considerable retention level.

• The course has been designed after extensive research to enable an illiterate to achieve the following learning competencies after 180 hours of course duration:

• Read newspaper in local language.
• Write a simple letter.
• Able to add, subtract, multiply and divide up to three figures.