ISLAMABAD: Out of the 771 million total adult illiterate population, 60 percent are in Asian countries and Pakistan has 6.2 percent of the total world illiterates, says the 2006 EFA global monitoring report.

The report “Literacy for life” was launched on Thursday by UNESCO. According to the report, 48.7 percent of Pakistan’s population that falls between the age group of 15 plus was literate, including 61.7 percent men and 35.2 percent women. In the adult literacy rate list of South and West Asian countries, Pakistan stands third last followed by Nepal at second last with 48.6 percent and Bangladesh at last with 41.1 percent adult literacy rate.

In the list of seven South and West Asian countries, Maldives is at the top of adult literacy that is 96.3 pc, including 96.2 percent men and 96.4 percent women. The report shows that 90.4 percent Sri Lankan adults were literate, including 92.2 percent men and 88.6 percent women.

Iran and India come at number three and four with 77 and 61 percent adult literacy rates respectively.

The UNESCO’s data shows that the number of illiterates and their percentage is increasing in Pakistan. According to census reports of Pakistan, 18.64 million people of were illiterate in 1951. In 1961, the number increased to 22.08 million, in 1972 it was 33.59 million, in 1981 it was 42.69 and in 1998 it increased to 50.38 million.

Likewise, the percentage of GDP spending on education continued to decline. It was 2.62 percent in 1996-97, 2.34 percent in 1997-98, 2.40 percent in 1998-99, 1.7 percent in 1999-00, 1.6 percent in 2000-01, 1.9 percent in 2001-02, 1.7 percent in 2002-03, 2.1 percent in 2003-04, 2.2 percent in 2004-05 and 2.1 percent in 2005-06, the UNESCO figures said quoting the census of Pakistan.

The report said that literacy was a right denied to over 50 million people in Pakistan and had been neglected in the policy agenda of the country.

The UN officials, in their presentations, reminded Pakistan of its commitment under national education policy 1998-2010 according to which literacy rate would be increased to 86 percent and 78 million people would be made literate by establishing 82,000 non-formal basic education schools and creating literacy corps comprising students and teachers. They recommended that the political leadership should lead the literacy movement and educational budget should be raised to four percent of the GDP.

According to the report, out of the 771 million adult illiterates, India had the highest share of 34.6 percent, China 11.3 percent, Pakistan 6.2 percent, Bangladesh 6.8 percent, Nigeria three percent, Ethiopia three percent, Egypt two percent, Indonesia 2.4 percent and Brazil two percent.

The report said that more than 380 million adults in South and West Asia lacked basic learning tools to take informed decisions and fully participate in the development of their societies. It said that on average, less than 60 percent of the total adult population in South and West Asia could read and write with any understanding, which is one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. The levels are even lower than 50 percent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. It says that regional literacy rate had increased to 11 percent since 1990, but still these countries found it difficult to reach the EFA adult literacy target of reducing levels of illiteracy by 50 percent by 2015 due to their current low literacy rates.

It says women constituted majority of the region’s adult illiterates with only 66 literate women for every 100 literate men. Indeed, most of the countries show substantial gender disparities in literacy, with the gender parity index (GPI) well below the regional average in Bangladesh 0.62, Nepal 0.56 and Pakistan 0.57 which are also the countries with lowest literacy rates, the report says.

It further says that in the countries where overall literacy rate is comparatively low, urban/rural disparities are also large. Pakistan is a typical example with 44 percent rural and 72 percent urban populations that are literate.

It said that the region as a whole had recently registered a sharp increase in primary enrolments but the goal of universal primary education remains a distant one as more than 30 million primary school age children were not enrolled, 58 percent of whom are girls. The net enrolment ratio varies from 59 percent in Pakistan to 92 percent in Maldives.

The report proposed a three-pronged strategy to enhance literacy that included universal quality basic education for girls and boys, scaling up youth and adult literacy programmes and development of environments conducive to the meaningful use of literacy. Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli, the minister of state for education, pledged that the EFA goals would soon be achieved. “We still have one decade left. The government is fully gearing up. We will go through the report. You will see significant change in these figures in the years to come,” she said.