Pakistan has almost 5.5 million
children that are out of school, the second highest number in the world only
after Nigeria. Pakistan also has the highest number of illiterate adults in the
world, after India and China.
These are just some of the findings of UNESCO’s latest report on the state of
global primary education that puts Pakistan’s current educational crisis in a
glaring, damning light.akistan is among the 21 countries facing an “extensive”
learning crisis, according to the report. This encapsulates a number of indices,
such as enrolment, dropout rates, academic performance and literacy. Pakistan
scores low in every index.
Broadly, global standards of primary education seemed particularly severe in
South and West Asia, and Western Africa. The countries in these regions,
including Pakistan, are behind in virtually every index. Pakistan features along
with 17 countries from sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania, Morocco and India.
Public vs Private
Children in a low-fee private school outperform those that are enrolled in the
top tier of government schools, laying bare the government’s crumbling
educational infrastructure. However, even in private schools, 36% of grade 5
students cannot read a sentence in English, which they should have been able to
do by grade 2.
Provincial Divides
The report exposed the inequalities in education within the country as well:
“Geographical disadvantage is often aggravated by poverty and gender. In
Balochistan province, Pakistan, only 45% of children of grade 5 age could solve
a two-digit subtraction, compared with 73% in wealthier Punjab province. Only
around one-quarter of girls from poor households in Balochistan achieved basic
numeracy skills, while boys from rich households in the province fared much
better, approaching the average in Punjab.”
Teaching crisis
The children were not the only problematic indicators. In a list of countries
that have the highest shortfall of teachers, Pakistan was the only non-African
country to be on the list. Nigeria was highest on the list, requiring 212,000
teachers. The study said that between 2011 and 2015, 5.2 million primary school
teachers are required globally to make sure that universal primary education is
guaranteed.
Women’s health, education tied together
The report also provided further evidence to the relationship between education
and health. In Pakistan, only 30% of women with no education believe they have a
say over how many children they have, compared with 52% of women with primary
education and 63% of those with lower secondary education.
Silver lining?
Amidst the crisis, the report also recommended programs that have mitigated the
crisis. Save the Children’s Literacy Boost was fairly successful in implementing
early grade reading programs in government schools. Similarly, children who had
attended after-school reading camps coordinated by community volunteers showed
greater learning gains in reading fluency and accuracy in both Pashto and Urdu
than classmates in the same schools.
Despite the implementation of promising programs, the report stated that
Pakistan is far away from achieving the 80% enrollment target it had set for
2015.