ISLAMABAD:The Asian Development Bank (ADB) here on Wednesday said that Pakistan had recorded significant improvements in overall school participation however it still faced severe challenges in providing quality and adequate education to eligible children.
According to a report, launched by the bank, titled “Access Challenges to Education in Pakistan”, the public sector remained the main provider of education services across all levels.
It accounts for the majority of all educational institutions countrywide. Except for the pre-primary level, total enrollment in public schools is almost double compared to private schools.
However the report suggested that further investment and reforms are needed at both levels to widen access and increase enrollment and completion adding that improved education outcomes would help assuage Pakistan’s high regional, socioeconomic, and gender disparities and promote robust and inclusive economic growth.
The ADP report proposed that the government needed to increase the fiscal budget for secondary education to augment access to schools. Given the public school dominance, an increased fiscal outlay for secondary education is essential to increase the number of secondary schools and upgrade school facilities.
Investing in expanding access to post primary education was critical to encourage higher participation and completion rates in both primary and secondary education levels and upgraded the quality of basic education, it added.
In addition, the report said that to increasing the fiscal outlays to the education sector, reforms were needed to improve the budget absorption rates, especially at the provincial level.
The report said that sufficient public financing and the use of efficient public financial management practices, along with improvements in governance and management of the education sector, were essential to achieve better school enrollment and learning outcomes.
The report said that private sector could play an instrumental role in addressing access related challenges to school education and productive Public-Private Partnership (PPP) modalities should be used to enhance the reach and quality of post primary education.
The PPP schools should be scaled up substantially, particularly in locations where public schools either did not exist or were too small, the report added.
It said that transport arrangements should be made alongside the consolidation of schools to minimize student dropouts.
Additionally, the use of multiple shifts for higher grades (6–8) in existing primary schools could be employed as a temporary measure to improve participation and transitions rates in the near term.
The report also recommended that the demand-side interventions to improve enrollment and reduce dropout rates, especially for girls, are important. Demand-side interventions include stipends, vouchers, and conditional cash transfers given to girls at the primary school level.