Tag Archives: Adult Education

Against All Odds – Story of a Struggle

It was the sweltering heat of May 1999 in the plains of Punjab. The vehicle struggled on the narrow dusty pathways spiraling through the crop fields. There was not even a semblance of a road. The moment the vehicle entered the village of Kot Dina in the district of Sheikhupura children of varying ages flocked after us. Seventeen kilometers away from the main road, like majority of the surrounding villages Kot Dina, with its mud thatched houses, had no functional primary school either for girls or boys. The area was the hub of ghost schools – the schools which were functional only on paper according to a government commissioned survey. The girls were the most deprived of the most basic educational opportunities as they were not allowed to go out of the village. The situation was breeding perennial illiteracy and, understandably, the area could not produce teachers. The fact that the villages were amongst the worst crime hit areas in the country made the prospects of availing the opportunities of getting educated very bleak. School buildings were in the personal use of the village elite – as meeting or storage places.

Teachers Need Support

The purpose of adult and non-formal basic education is to provide an opportunity to those who
were left out or dropped out of school for some reason. There are a host of reasons why they
lagged behind in the mainstream of education and development. Generally speaking, they come
from the resource poor families who have no faith in the meaning and fruitfulness of long years of
schooling.

Khoj Methodology – A Sure Way to Education for All in Pakistan 1

The number of out of school children in Pakistan exceeds the total population of the countries like Norway, Ireland and New Zealand. According to the 2012 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, the country is home to around 5.1 million such children, which makes it the abode of the second largest number of out of school children in the world. Unfortunately, the story of the dismal performance doesn’t end here. Pakistan is also home to more than 50 million illiterate adults which is the third highest number in the world. And almost half of the rural women have never been to school.