Why Can't Pakistani Children Read?
Why Can’t Pakistani Children Read? The Inside Story of Education Reform Efforts Gone Wrong by Nadia Naviwala Available From: ASIA PROGRAM Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20004-3027 www.wilsoncenter.org Cover image: Girls sit outside at a government school in Peshawar because there is not enough space in the classrooms. When a teacher is asked, “Is there anyone who says we don’t want our daughters to study?” she says, “No, they all come. Parents want their daughters to go to school.” According to an analysis by Adam Smith International, government secondary schools for girls in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the province that Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai is from, are enrolled at capacity. Photo by Nadia Naviwala. All photos appearing in this report were taken by Nadia Naviwala. Preface In Pakistan, millions of children are not in school. And yet, millions more are in school, where they must suffer through the effects of a broken education system. Even after many years of being in school, most of these children struggle to read and learn. After decades of building schools and enrolling children in them, the international community has been forced to confront the reality that schools in Pakistan—and elsewhere—are not delivering education, or even literacy. The Wilson Center’s Asia Program, recognizing the immense challenge that Pakistan’s education crisis poses to the country’s development, has focused on this issue for many years. Its products include a book in 2005, a major conference in 2014, and an in-depth report by Nadia Naviwala called Pakistan’s Education Crisis: The Real Story.
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