‘Spending on education declining’

Islamabad : Pakistan’s public education spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product is gradually declining, reveals the latest government figures.

According to the 2021-22, Economic Survey of Pakistan released on Thursday, the cumulative education expenditure by the federal and provincial governments in the financial year 2020-21 totalled 1.77 per cent of GDP against 1.9 per cent in 2019-20, 1.98 per cent in 2018-19 and 2.12 per cent in 2017-18.

The spending, however, went up from Rs901.013 billion in 2019-20 to Rs988.032 in 2020-21. It was Rs868.022 billion in 2018-19 and Rs829.152 billion in 2017-18.

As the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey wasn’t conducted in 2021-22 due to the upcoming Population and Housing Census, 2022, the ESP mentioned the findings of the Labour Force Survey, 2020-21, for the country's literacy rate, which was 62.8 per cent in 2020-21 compared to 62.4 per cent in 2018-19.

The percentage went up from 73 to 73.4 in men and from 51.5 to 51.9 in women. The narrowing down of the men-women disparity was also reported. The area-wise analysis showed the literacy ratio increased from 53.7 per cent to 54 per cent in villages and from 76.1 per cent to 77.3 per cent in cities.

All provinces recorded higher literacy rate. It went up from 66.1 per cent to 66.3 per cent in Punjab, from 61.6 per cent to 61.8 per cent in Sindh, from 52.4 per cent to 55.1 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and from 53.9 per cent to 54.5 per cent in Balochistan. A significant improvement was witnessed in the overall education situation based on the key indicators such as enrolments, number of institutions and teachers.

According to the ESP, the enrolments recorded during 2019-20 were 55.7 million compared to 53.1 million in 2018-19 showing an increase of 4.9 per cent. They're estimated to surge to 58.5 million next year. The nationwide educational institutions totalled 277.5 thousand in 2019-20 compared to 271.8 thousand in 2018-19 with the likelihood of the tally reaching 283.7 thousand in one year. Similarly, the number of teachers came to 1.83 million in 2019-20 compared to 1.79 million last year with a likely jump to 1.89 million within a year.

The survey also recorded a budget cut for the higher education regulator, HEC, in the year 2021-22. The federal government initially allocated Rs42.45 billion for the HEC to implement 168 development projects (128 ongoing and 40 new) of public sector universities and higher education institutions but later ‘rationalised/curtailed’ the funding to Rs32.338 billion.