Like other parts of the country, the World Literacy Day was observed by a number of government and private sector organisations in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad Monday.

Colourful functions marking the day were held in hotels and other places and speakers stressed for improving literacy rate in the country. According to a report, people of 1,054 villages are totally illiterate in the country while more than 50 per cent are still illiterate in Pakistan. The government is spending Rs520 million annually to boost the standard of education in the country. Around 58 per cent government schools in the country are without electricity.

According to a survey conducted by 'The News', mostly children get admission in government schools where unfortunately the education standard is not up to the mark. Rawalpindi has more than 100 government schools including primary, middle and high and 30 colleges for boys and girls while the number of private institutions is more than 500. But students face difficulties due to lack of teachers and lecturers in these institutions. The buildings and furniture of government institutions is in dilapidated condition and dozens of institutions did not have even toilets and drinking water system.

The PML-Q government had established more than 15 girls' colleges in Rawalpindi City but the future of students in these colleges is at stake as lack of lecturers created many difficulties for students.

Principal Government Post-Graduate College Gawalmandi Musarrat Parveen told 'The News' that there is no English lecturer in her college for the last four years and lecturers of other subjects have to take extra periods that resulted in poor results. Literacy rate could be boost up by providing facilities, she said.

"Poverty, unstable government and ever-increasing inflation in the country played major role in illiteracy," Matloob Hussain, an educationist, said. "Establishing new schools and colleges is not sufficient, there is a need to improve the education standard," Owais Ahmed Saddique, another educationist, said.

Source: thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=134779