It is an unfortunate fact that despite education being the priority on social reform agenda at the policy level, and every one paying lip service to the cause and urgency of the problem of mass illiteracy, we see thousands of children around who are deprived of the right of education due to variety of reasons.

Poverty and lack of opportunity pushes them to end up being rag pickers, car boys, vendors, and domestic child workers.  Pakistan is bracketed with the world’s poorest regions when it comes to education.

Pakistan’s ranking in public spending on education is the lowest in the region and continues to be poor. According to the statistics the total enrollment in the primary schools is nearly 22 million.  The net enrollment ratio of the children aging between 5-9 years in Pakistan is 57 %.  At least on paper. This still means that a staggering 43 % never enroll.

Illiteracy remains prevalent in girls, communities of rural areas, and among the members of poor households. Our plan is an effort to diminish the huge disparity of opportunity and access to literacy between the children of privileged and the underprivileged classes in Pakistan and to promote the ability to read, write and understand among the children and above all provide them with a tool to grow further.

According to all Pakistan Labor Force Survey 2007 and 2008, over 21 million child laborers are working in the country out of which 73 percent are boys and 27 percent are girls. The age group of these child laborers is between 10 to 14 years.  Due to the absolute poverty their families live in and the day to day hardships they are face with it is difficult for them to go for education.

Speed literacy program is an initiative of Vision21 through which we want to make an effort to give such children a hope and a start to get education.

While there are several large and small charitable organizations working on educating children the lack of resources and funds continues to hamper their efforts. When faced with literally 20 million illiterate kids the challenge is daunting to say the least.  Especially with no help from the State and several cultural taboos to face, it is an uphill task.

To educate from a primary to the matriculation level an average spend on the child including all his books etc is in the region of RS 35000 per year, on no profit  no loss basis. This expense is on top of capital spending for setting up a school, which is on average around 6 to 10 million PKR.

This means that to educate a child one need to spend a capital of 6 to 10 million first and then to teach them from year 1 to 5 each child will cost 150,000 PKR.

So how about if we can teach a child to be able to read and write for up to year 5 grade within six months instead of five years at the cost of 10000PKR.