Pakistan launches new education plan in Sindh

Recently, the Sindh Minister for Education and Literacy launched the first Education Sector Plan for Sindh Province in Pakistan. It is a significant and very positive step forward for Sindh.

October 20, 2014 by Ed Lamot, GPE Secretariat
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6 minutes read
Credit: Nadir Burney

Recently, the Sindh Minister for Education and Literacy launched the first Education Sector Plan for Sindh Province in Pakistan. It is a significant and very positive step forward for Sindh, Pakistan’s second most populous province that faces significant education challenges.

Pakistan’s challenges

Pakistan is the world’s sixth most populous country, with an estimated 179 million people (2012). It has great potential in terms of resources and economic growth, but faces significant economic, governance and security challenges. On UNDP’s Human Development Index, Pakistan ranks 146th out of 187 countries.

In 2010, an amendment to the constitution made education free and compulsory for all children aged 5 to 16. While enrollment rates in primary schools have since been rising, Pakistan still lags behind other South Asian countries.

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, there are still 5.3 million children of primary-school age out of school (the 2012 Pakistan Education Statistics put the number even at 8.3 million) – mostly from the large provinces such as Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh. Girls’ education is a challenge with only 81 girls enrolling in primary school for every 100 boys. This gender inequity worsens as educations paths progress, from primary completion to higher education.

There are also large disparities between urban and rural areas, and between the poor and affluent. Currently, Pakistan spends about 2.1% of GDP on education, which is significantly lower than the average for lower middle-income countries. But the government has committed to progressively increasing its spending on education over the next few years, to reach 4% of GDP.  This will take considerable reform, including a sizeable increase in the country’s revenue collection.  Pakistan has a very low rate of revenue collection, currently at under 10 % of GDP. The average for lower middle-income countries is 16% (source IMF).   

Pakistan is a member of the Global Partnership for Education

Pakistan joined the Global Partnership for Education in 2012, adhering to the Partnerships core principles as indicated in its Charter. Since then, the Global Partnership helped Pakistan develop education sector plans for Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

The signing of the Education Sector Plan in Sindh has been significant, because for the first time all development partners --including government representatives, development partners, non-governmental organizations, teachers and civil society organizations -- worked together in what we call the Local Education Group.

They identified high priority needs and put together a plan that is now the blueprint for education reform and implementation for the next five years. The government’s goal is to increase literacy from 59% to 70 % by 2018. UNICEF as co-chair of the Local Education Group, have supported Sindh’s Education and Literacy Department and their partners in this process. 

The Global Partnership for Education has allocated an education grant of US$ 66 million to support the implementation of the plan, in addition to significant grant contributions from other international partners (including UNICEF, Canadian International Development  Agency, U.K Department for International Development, European Union, Japan International Cooperation Agency, U.S. Agency for International Development and Save the Children) and a large concessional loan from the World Bank.

Focusing on reaching the most marginalized children

The Sindh Education Sector Plan focuses on increasing access to education for the most-marginalized children including girls, and improving learning outcomes along with governance and accountability of the education sector.

More specifically, the plan aims to strengthen governance and service delivery by improving capacity at the school, district and provincial levels, increase access to early childhood education, primary and secondary education, improve the quality of learning outcomes and the quality of teachers, enhance resource allocation across provinces and improve the fiscal sustainability and effectiveness of education spending.

The Local Education Group will regularly review the implementation of the plan -  in an open and transparent manner.  

The Global Partnership continues to support the joint and mutually accountable efforts of the Federal Government of Pakistan, the Government of Sindh, international development partners and all key stakeholders of the education system.

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Comments

As a student of Pakistan.....i have visited multi cities of Pakistan and conclude that there is no any proper way of education in Govt. institutions.......Teachers are not well qualified..... as far as my opinion concerned, G.P.E is just wasting their resources by investing in Pakistan through Govt. because the Govt. over here is not a well managed Government...... they are here only & only to capitalize their bank balances through corruption............ G.P.E should have a youth Group here in Pakistan just for Accountability of Govt......& that group should give a annual report to G.P.E

In reply to by Muhammad Nasee…

The Global Partnership for Education works with governments and development partners to prepare education sector plans that are the basis for education funding. By having all partners involved, transparency and accountability increases. We have a zero tolerance policy on the misuse of funds as stated in our publicly-available policy.

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