MUZAFFARGARH: A rally was arranged in the district to mark the International Literacy Day here on Tuesday.

Scores of teachers, students and civil society representatives gathered at education office and took out a rally which ended at Khursheedabad Girls High School.

Among the participants was 40-year-old Surraya Mai of Basti Maharan who was illiterate and started learning basic education just three years ago. She proudly says she can now read newspaper and communicate through email.

She says she studied at a non-formal school of literacy department for six months and later her children taught her how to make a draft in Urdu on computer.

The rally was taken out by Idara-i-Taleem-oAagahi, Oxfam GB and Dubai Cares.

DCO Hafiz Shaukat Ali said Pakistan had 64pc lit-eracy rate and Muzaffargarh had better enrollment of students in the last two years.

ITA District Manager Shaukat Hussain said on this day an awareness campaign should be launched in each village and towns to highlight the importance of education.

He condemned child marriage and said such menaces could be fought only througheducation.

Meanwhile, hundreds of literacy department workers from across the province had planned a protest in front of the Punjab Assembly but they postponed it after the secretary literacy assured them that their contracts would be extended for one year.

A literacy coordinator seeking anonymity said they had got letters of their contract in 2014 according to which their jobs would end in 2016 but, sources said, officials promised them that they would get one-year extension.