Literacy: The definition of literacy according to which the statistics for literacy have been compiled from 1998 to 2006 is given as “One who can read newspaper and write a simple letter, in any language and perform a simple sum.” (IPRSP, 2001) According to the curriculum prescribed by the Sindh Textbook Board, a child should meet the stated standard of literacy by class 2.

As part of the research methodology, a basic life skills test was designed and taken by a number of students from Grade 4 and 5. The test was deliberately made to assess basic skills and concepts associated with literacy and numeracy, which, in accordance with the national curriculum, are ostensibly covered in Grades 1 to 3.

Literacy Test: The first component of the literacy test was designed to gauge the proficiency of students in vernacular languages, which are the primary medium of instruction in government schools. The test was essentially comprised of five levels which are described as follows:

• Alphabet Level

• Word Level

• Paragraph Level

• Story Level

• Comprehension Level

After conducting this portion of the test, the students were then asked to write a simple sentence in their vernacular language with the objective of assessing their proficiency in writing.

Test Results: A significant majority of students with the exception of Hyderabad failed to reach the comprehension level. Significantly, there were also incidences of students in most districts, who, despite being completely illiterate, were nevertheless enrolled in Grade 4. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that there were also instances where children who could not read in vernacular were able to write out answers to basic questions such as “What is the name of my school?” and “What is your name?” The phenomenon was strongly reflective of a rote element in teaching methodologies.

Expectedly, the results for basic competence in the English language were far worse than the results for competency in vernacular languages.

Numeracy: While the Government of Pakistan has not specifically defined the concept of numeracy, the UNESCO definition at the basic level recognizes numeracy to be the ability to count and reorganize/recognize 1-1000.

Numeracy and Mathematical Skills Test: This test was designed to assess some of the basic numeric and mathematical skills that students at this level are expected to have.

Test Results: In general, students tended to perform best on questions on addition and worst on division problems. The aforementioned results of the basic life skills test reflect, in general, the abysmally poor quality of education being disseminated in government primary schools. Furthermore, it should also be noted that that this test dispels the myth that high dropout rates and low retention rates are directly responsible for the lack of satisfactory learning outcomes. While their impact cannot be completely disregarded, it must be emphasized that this test was conducted on students who were fairly regular in their attendance.