based on considerable improvements in enrolment, retention and importantly, gender parity. KP is still far behind ICT, AJK, and Punjab in many crucial measures, but the improvement is marked.
“These rankings promote healthy competition among provinces and districts”, said Balighur Rahman, Federal Minister for Education and Training.”The situation of education in Pakistan is improving after the 2013 elections. Provinces have allocated more resources to education and recent PSLM survey shows that the number of out of school children has significantly reduced”, he added.
Much like last year Balochistan and Fata occupy the bottom of the rankings, highlighting critical, long-term political challenges for Pakistan. This is despite a drop in Balochistan’s score (3.67%) and a large increase in Fata’s score (15.12%).Quetta is the highest ranked district and the only one in the top 50 districts while almost half the districts of Balochistan rank outside the top 100.
The report shows that despite poor performance on the school infrastructure score, Gilgit-Baltistan holds steady at fourth position while its education score shows an increase by 1.69%.
Sindh has climbed down a spot since last year and now sits at the sixth spot owing primarily to a decline in enrolment. Sindh’s continued poor performance is further emphasized by the fact that only one of its 24 districts is in the top 50, while half of its districts are ranked in the bottom third.
Overall Pakistan’s education score remains steady (an increase of 1.67%). This is the second consecutive year of modest improvement. The biggest decline seen in the scores is in the learning score, while improvements are seen in retention (survival till class 5) and gender parity.
The biggest takeaway for policymakers should be the falling learning scores. Quality of education is fast-becoming the single biggest challenge for the education system. Pakistan cannot continue to focus on universal enrolment or gender parity, whilst allowing quality to suffer. This is highlighted by low learning scores across the board for all districts and provinces.