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early half of school-aged children in Pakistan attend private schools that the government cannot monitor. Some are in large urban institutions, while others are in small, rented schools, but the majority are officially unregistered. Their records are absent from national databases, and their academic progress isn’t tracked. The government’s Education Management Information System (EMIS) focuses on public school students but doesn’t include the millions in private schools. Consequently, roughly 47 percent of students remain unseen by the education system meant to serve them.
This invisibility goes beyond bureaucratic issues; it’s a national blind spot. With no reliable data on enrollment or student achievement, Pakistan struggles to understand what nearly half of its students are learning or whether they are learning at all. Official statistics, reports, and reforms that rely only on public school data provide an incomplete view. The remaining part of the education system functions without oversight, evaluation, or acknowledgment. This hidden segment constitutes the unseen half of Pakistan’s educational landscape.
Even though international and national human capital indicators typically rely on official data from recognized public and private institutions, excluding unregistered private schools leads to a substantial underestimation of key metrics such as gross and net enrollment rates, expected years of schooling, and average attainment. This results in a misleading perception of low educational engagement, hiding the fact that millions of children are attending schools but are not reflected in official statistics.
This data gap reveals a core issue that hampers Pakistan’s ability to properly assess, regulate, and enhance its education system. While the government’s monitoring systems, such as the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) and the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), primarily focus on public schools by collecting data on registrations, teacher qualifications, classrooms, and student numbers, there is no equivalent framework for private schools.
There is no centralized database for private institutions, no annual student census, and no standardized mechanism for evaluating their performance. Although provincial departments have registration systems, these are often incomplete, outdated, or disconnected from national databases. As a result, reliable data on private school enrollment, teacher credentials, or learning outcomes are mostly absent.
Thus, the government cannot ensure that children in private schools receive quality education and so cannot identify underperforming schools, offer targeted teacher training, or design support programs where they are most needed. Pakistan thus evaluates only a small part of its education sector and makes broad conclusions about the entire system.
Across the country, private schools are widely seen as a better choice than government institutions, symbolizing discipline, English proficiency, and academic success. Parents, often making significant financial sacrifices, enroll their children in these schools, believing they offer a path to social mobility.
However, these beliefs are mostly based on anecdotal evidence rather than verified data. Since the government neither collects nor publishes performance information for private schools, there is no clear way to determine whether these institutions truly deliver better learning outcomes.
This situation has intensified a national education debate driven more by perceptions than facts. Although public schools face detailed scrutiny, including teacher performance and textbooks, the private sector is mostly overlooked. This creates a skewed perception: Pakistan tends to equate visibility with quality, believing private schools are superior just because they are more visible and organized.
Emerging evidence is beginning to challenge these longstanding assumptions. The Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) recently evaluated the performance of public and private schools in Islamabad by administering the National Assessment Test (NAT) to students from both sectors. The results revealed no notable difference in learning outcomes between the two groups.
Every child, regardless of where they study, is the responsibility of the state. By creating an inclusive, data-driven education system, Pakistan can finally ensure that every child’s learning is recognized, measured, and valued, not just their attendance.
Interestingly, public school students slightly outperformed private school students in Urdu and Mathematics, while private school students had a minor advantage in English, likely because of English-medium instruction rather than better teaching quality.
Similar findings emerged from the Sustainable Development Policy Institute’s (SDPI) ILMpact Baseline Assessment 2025, which measured learning levels among children aged five to sixteen in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The results revealed that students from public and private schools achieved nearly identical scores in core skills, while children in Foundational Assisted and Community-based (FA/C) schools lagged far behind. These studies suggest a troubling misconception: Pakistan has equated visibility with quality, not realizing that the two are not the same.
This vacuum also deepens inequality: wealthy families can afford high-end private schools that often meet international standards, while poorer families rely on low-cost private schools with unqualified teachers and inadequate facilities. In short, Pakistan’s education system is attempting to fix a problem it has never fully measured.
Pakistan must establish a unified national education data system that captures every child, whether enrolled in a government, private, or community-based school. A National Education Registry, jointly developed by the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), provincial departments, and private school associations, could serve as the backbone of this effort. Each school should be registered with a unique identifier, recording essential information such as enrollment numbers, teacher qualifications, infrastructure, and student assessment results.
With digital technology already in use for EMIS data in public schools, extending similar systems to private institutions is entirely feasible. Regular data sharing between provinces and the federal ministry would ensure an integrated national education database. Only by counting every child and every classroom can Pakistan move from estimating progress to measuring it, and from assumptions to accountability.
An integrated, transparent data system would do more than just count students; it would strengthen the foundations of learning itself. Accurate data would enable the government to identify struggling schools, monitor teacher performance, and design targeted interventions based on real needs rather than speculation.
Private schools could also participate in national assessments, such as the NAT, ensuring that learning outcomes are measured across the entire education landscape. Parents, too, would benefit from access to verified school profiles, helping them make informed decisions rather than relying on reputation or marketing.
Once the invisible half of Pakistan’s education system becomes visible, the nation can finally begin to measure learning, not just attendance.
To truly improve learning, Pakistan must move beyond enrollment figures to actual outcomes. Every school, including public, private, and community-based schools, must be part of a single, transparent national system that values evidence over assumption and inclusion over invisibility.
The future of Pakistan’s education depends on this shift, from perception to policy, and from invisibility to accountability. Every child, regardless of where they study, is the responsibility of the state. By creating an inclusive, data-driven education system, Pakistan can finally ensure that every child’s learning is recognized, measured, and valued, not just their attendance.
The writer is Lead Statistician at Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan. The views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily reflect the organization’s official stance. He can be reached at mohsinalisdpi.org and tweets kazmi_m