Daily Times

Lahore: Alif Ailan’s five-year assessment of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa government’s performance in education sector refers to the Education Sector Plan (ESP) of 2010 as ‘more ambitious and less practical’. While it praises the plan for bringing about radical improvements in public schools, it qualifies successes by stressing that 51 percent of girls were still not enrolled in schools in the province.

The report notes that government’s efforts to transition from an exclusive focus on input delivery methods to ensuring institutional reforms is visible in the ESP objectives and priorities.

The report refers to four development indicators to measure the KP government’s education emergency. These are: improvement in government schools, education quality, financial reform, and the provision of data for public use.

Improving public schools

According to National Education Management System estimates, almost 80 per cent of all the schools in K-P are public schools. Over 70 percent students enrolled across the primary to higher secondary levels frequent government schools.

Alif Ailaan’s report notes there has been a substantial improvement in the provision of basic facilities in schools over five years. The province registered a remarkable increase of over 25 percent in the District Education Ranking score from 2013 to 2016, and topped the primary school infrastructure index nationwide.

“The government has provided 83,000 missing facilities across nearly 24,000 schools, spending about Rs29.11 billion on the project.

“Over 5,000 schools have been provided with sports kits to encourage healthier and active lifestyles and nearly 1,170 information technology labs have been established across high and higher secondary schools.”

The report observes that there are still 2.5 million out-of-school children across the province. The challenge of enrolling them remains largely unresolved, however, it says.

The report stresses that girls are at a ‘greater disadvantage’ with over half (51%) not attending school. “The government has taken steps to address the problem. These include the provision of stipends to girls registering regular attendance and the establishment of exclusive community schools. Also, recent data indicates that primary schools outnumber middle and high schools by 4:1,” the report highlights, terming it the root cause of the crisis of student retention.

Quality standards

The province is facing a learning crisis. The National Achievement Test scores in 2016 showed that children in KP were lagging behind the national mean.

Since then, the report notes, the government has taken measures to improve teacher recruitment. The report says 40,000 educators had been recruited through the NTS since 2013, and 17,000 more are being hired.

The government has also revamped recruitment criteria, radically raising competition against vacancies. Over 65,000 teachers have been trained since 2013 with Rs800 million being allocated for greater student learning.

Financial reforms

The report urges the provincial government to spend more on the sector, noting that budget allocations had not translated into improved utilisation. It highlights that KP has been the only province that has consistently allocated budgets higher than the UN recommended 20 percent baseline, noting that education budget in KP increased from Rs84.629 billion in 2013 to Rs168.085 billion to date. This represented an increase of about 61 percent over the 2013 education budget – with 17 percent coming in the current fiscal year over the previous one.

School-based budgeting has also enabled middle and primary schools to prepare budgets and track expenditure, according to the report. However, while increased budget allocations have led to incremental improvements in physical infrastructure, teacher pay and student enrolment, outlays are still insufficient to fully address problems confronting the sector, the report states.

The government has been criticised for seizing textbook board assets worth Rs6 billion. The reallocation, according to the report, can delay the printing and distribution of books among students at government schools.

Revamping data provision and management

The report notes that the KP government established an Independent Monitoring Unit to collect school data. The Unit tracks teacher and student attendance, and availability of facilities. Because of the increase in accountability, absenteeism has decreased by nearly 15 percent and student attendance has rose by 24 percent.

Policy improvement areas

The report has advised the KP government to focus on raising middle and high school enrolment. The report says more attention should be devoted to transport facilities among other measures to improve girls’ access to post-primary education .

Published in Daily Times, March 21^st 2018.