Literacy Trends in Pakistan - UNESCO Islamabad

In the present day context, when paper and pencil are being replaced by the key board, calculators are performing mathematical functions andthe internet has become the source of information, there is every possibility that books may loose their relative value. This element whileincreasing the access of people to vast sources of knowledge, may hamper other equally important skills.Literacies of the FutureThe enormous range of potential applications for computers makes it likely that an element of re-definition willinevitably accrue in respect of what is understood by “basic literacy”. Familiarity with keyboards or other inputdevices could replace the pen or pencil, not as the most commonly available physical means of producing writtentexts, but tested in schools and other formal educational settings. Such shifts in the physical means of producing textare by no means unprecedented, but the advent of micro-computers is significant because their purchase and supportwill always entail relatively large expenditures (at least compared to pens and pencils) with the resulting scope forincreased national and international disparities in access to the new variants of literacy.UNESCO, 1990, “ The Future of Literacy and Literacies of the Future” , in Literacy Lessons, IBE, UNESCO Geneva/France , page .6.With this overview of definitions of literacy in mind, we now see as how it has been defined in Pakistan over a period of time.6