Seventy-five percent of children in Pakistan are unable to read a sentence in English, a survey report launched by South Asia Forum for Education Development has found.

The report of the Forum, managed by Idara Taleem-o-Aagahi in collaboration with the Foundation Open Society Institute, Department for International Development, National Commission for Human Development and Oxfam, also revealed that as many as 58 percent children in the country cannot read a sentence in Urdu or in their regional languages, The Dawn reports.

According to the report, the household survey that assessed learning outcomes of school-going (5-16 years) children in 85 districts (rural areas) across Pakistan found that majority of the children could not even read up to Class-II level text in Urdu, regional languages or English or do basic levels of arithmetic. Only 41.8 percent children, of those assessed, could read at least a sentence in Urdu or in their own regional languages while merely 25.8 percent of them were able to read sentences in English.

Learning levels of the children in arithmetic were even worse as just 40.1 percent of them could do two-digit subtraction sums with carry while only 23.6 percent could do three-digit division sums.

The survey was conducted in 28 districts of Punjab, Balochistan; 15 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 14 in Sindh, 17 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, four in Gilgit-Baltistan, three in Fata and two in Islamabad capital territory.

The report revealed that 57.3 percent of 3-5 age group children were not enrolled for pre-schooling while 32.3 per cent of five years age children were out of school, posing a great challenge for the provincial governments that are struggling to achieve universal primary education. (ANI)