UCLA Center for the Study of Women

In Decembmber of 2006, I traveled to Pakistan, where my classmate John Hellmann and I conducted interviews with teachers and staff of Developments in Literacy (DIL) schools. Our work and research in Pakistan were components of a Master’s in Public Policy client project, and involved a seven-month organizational assessment to aid Developments in Literacy in its efforts to bring education to the disadvantaged girls and boys of Pakistan.

I n Pakistan, only 53% of population is literate—where literacy is defined as the ability to write a simple letter and read a newspaper. As in many countries where women’s basic human rights are still emerging in the political and public spheres, literacy rates reflect entrenched cultural inequities. In some regions of Pakistan the An Assessment of the Nonprofit Organization, Developments in Literacy G irls’ Education in Rural Pakistanliteracy gap between men and women can be as large as 45 percentage points. Take for example the North West Frontier Province that borders with Afghanistan. There the male literacy rate is 61%, while the female literacy rate is an abysmal 22%. In some rural areas of the country such as Kalat in the Province of Balochistan, only 9% of women are literate