Today, most school-going children in Pakistan are deprived of good quality education. According to Annual Status of Education Report 2015, 50% of students in Grade 5 cannot perform simple two-digit division (meant for Grade 3). 49% of students in Grade 5 cannot read a sentence in English (meant for Grade 2). 55% of students in Grade 5 cannot read a simple story in Urdu/regional languages (meant for Grade 2).

Children’s Literature Festival, a social movement triggered by low learning levels confined to just textbooks and tests, has launched The School Reading Program (SRP) 2016. SRP2016 is in collaboration with Alif Ailaan (http://www.alifailaan.pk/), an education reforms campaign. The program is aimed at ensuring that education quality and learning outcomes begin to occupy increased space in the education discourse by seeking to engage politicians, local government officials and education managers with students of primary government schools in their respective constituencies through the art of storytelling to generate much-needed public discussions around poor learning outcomes, uncover solutions expected to improve them, and ultimately, bring about dramatic improvements in learning levels.

You may view the ASER 2015's Learning Levels Factsheet here.

Following is the list of politicians and resource persons we have engaged with throughout the course of the program.

Jan Achakzai
Former Interim Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Ghous Bux Barozai