Kathmandu, March 7:

Minister for Education and Sports, Radhkrishna Mainali has urged education experts and policy makers to draft educational policy aimed at providing more job opportunities to the increasing literate people.

Education Minister Mainali made this appeal while inaugurating the workshop on the 10-year old literacy policy and programme working structure organised in Lalitpur here today. The programme was organised by the Informal Education Center and UNESCO, Kathmandu.

Minister Mainali laid stressed the need of policy that would give priority to direct and indirect practical education as well as inclusive education encompassing Muslim community, the Terai population and Buddhist community of hilly region.

According to the National Census of 2058, 54 per cent of population under six years of age and above are literate. According to the Census, 65 per cent of men and 43 per cent of women are literate.

The Ministry of Education and Sports have launched various information education programme and literacy programme to reduce the number of illiterate people across the country, it was informed.

At the programme, Assistant Minister for Education and Sports Bhuvan Pathak noted that schools are presently under the influence of terrorism and said informal education should be tied up with vocation and skills.

Resident representative of UNESCO Koto Kano said that that literacy should be used as tool of life rather than for teaching alone.

At the workshop, Coordinator of the Global Programme of UNESCO education and co-ordinator of Department of Regional Education based in Bangkok Abdul H Hakim presented a working paper on literacy and informal education.

The draft policy contain a 10-year literacy as well as informal education policy and work restructuring which aims at raising the status of marginalised group by providing them with life skills and equal opportunities to develop their social, economic and humanitarian sides.

The policy has targeted at illiterate women with age group of 15-45 and illiterate children in the age group of 6-14.