ISLAMABAD: An official report released on Friday placed the country’s education system in the ‘low’ performance category and highlighted critical areas requiring attention to improve the education outcomes.

The District Education Performance Index (DEPIx) Report 2020-23 released by the Planning Commission stated, “Pakistan’s national average score in the DEPIx is 53.46, placing the country in the “low” performance category.

Among the five domains, infrastructure and access scored the highest at 58.95, indicating some progress in expanding educational opportunities. Inclusion (equity and technology) follows as the second-highest domain.“

It said public financing recorded the lowest score, highlighting the need for increased and better-targeted spending in the education sector. The learning domain also scores poorly, reflecting persistently low learning outcomes among students.

“Governance and management, though slightly better than learning, still falls in the “low” category, mainly due to teacher shortages and high bureaucratic turnover,” it said.

None of 134 districts falls within ‘very high’ performance category, only Islamabad in ‘high’ category

The report said that over the past decades, the country has reached middle-income status and made commendable progress in developing its human capital. However, this progress has been slower than that of other developing countries and regional peers.

The slow pace of human capital development poses challenges not only to realising the potential demographic dividend but also to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and attaining upper-middle-income status by 2047.

The report said among the critical factors in human capital development, providing quality and inclusive education is paramount. In 2010, the parliament devolved policy, administrative and fiscal authority over education to the provinces and enshrined the right to free education as a fundamental right through Article 25-A of the Constitution.

Since then, provincial governments have enacted compulsory education laws, increased budgetary allocations for school education and implemented various governance and data reforms.

Notably, reforms in the education data regime have improved the availability of data on education indicators. Notwithstanding these efforts, the complexity, breadth and fragmentation of education data have often made it challenging for policymakers and stakeholders to use it effectively in decision-making.

To address these issues and support the education emergency declared by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in May, the Planning Commission integrated various school education indicators into composite scorecards.

The DEPIx is structured across five domains: infrastructure and access, learning, inclusion (equity and technology), governance and management and public financing. It covers 134 districts across Pakistan, including Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Punjab, Sindh and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

Besides highlighting the national overview, the report also included the provincial overview. It said Punjab emerged as the top-performing province with a composite score of 61.39 followed by KP with a score of 54.88 while Sindh and Balochistan lagged behind with scores of 51.49 and 45.70, respectively.

Pertaining to the district-level insights, the report said none of the 134 districts fall within the “very high” performance category and only Islamabad falls into the “High” category, making it an outlier as the highest-performing districts.

Alarmingly, the report adds that more than half of Pakistan’s districts (76) fall into the “Low” performance category. These low-performing districts are predominantly in Balochistan and Sindh with 33 districts in Balochistan and 22 in Sindh. Notably, all districts of Balochistan fall in the “Low” education performance category, indicating severe challenges across the province.

Apart from the ICT, the top 10 districts are exclusively from Punjab and KP - seven from Punjab and two from KP. No districts from Sindh or Balochistan are represented among the top 10.

Regarding the intra-provincial disparities, the report said significant variations in education performance exist within provinces. KP exhibits the greatest intra-provincial differences, with districts like Haripur, Chitral and Abbottabad among the top performers while Kolai Palas, Upper Kohistan and Lower Kohistan ranking among the lowest.

There is nearly a 30-point gap between the best and worst-performing districts in KP. Punjab and Balochistan show the least intra-provincial variation, with Punjab’s districts mostly falling into the medium category and all of Balochistan’s districts in the low category. Sindh has moderate variation with most districts in the “low” category except for the urban districts of Karachi and Hyderabad.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024