Defining a good school is simple: it is a place where children are occupied and learning. In many of the countries I visit, I do find these “good schools.” In Karachi in Sindh province in Pakistan for instance, I visited two good schools, one was called a “Trust” school and the second, a government school. The Trust school belonged to the government with day-to-day operations entrusted to a private philanthropic organization. The government school was fully funded by the government. As I entered both these schools, I could tell that there was teaching and learning taking place on a regular basis. 

The ‘good’ schools

In the Trust school, there was a clear “system” and “order” observed with children sitting in every classroom busy with what they were doing. Each child had a notebook, a textbook and writing instrument. Teachers were either watching students or talking to students. Student work was displayed on desks and instructional materials scattered around the classroom. A similar situation was found in another school close by, which was fully funded by the government and with decidedly poorer children. In the Trust School, members of the Trust had transformed the school’s physical space, hired additional staff, trained teachers and introduced creativity in the curriculum and regularity in instruction. Child health and safety were considered to be paramount for this school. They worked toward: Promoting a positive learning environment (creativity, and remedial instruction) Providing opportunities for community involvement Regular monitoring of student learning through tests Ensuring appropriate pupil-teacher ratios Consistency in teacher evaluations (demonstrated subject matter competence for each core subject taught by the teacher) Planned for and promoted quality and accountability in school management (rewarding accomplishments and responding to lack of accountability and weak performance).

The ‘not so good’ schools

Two other schools I visited, a private and a government school during the same trip, failed to come close to the quality of schools described above. In the private school, children appeared to be from the middle class and lower middle class backgrounds–well dressed with nice school bags and books. However, classrooms were bare and dingy. In many of the classes observed, children were talking to each other or staring into space. Instruction did not seem to be taking place on a regular basis. In the government school, children came from poor families, and there was little evidence that teachers were coming to school regularly or that instruction was taking place on schedule. School inspection reports observed were half a page with very general comments and no indication that there were problems with the school. Every country has “good” schools, and every country has “bad” schools.

But why are there such striking differences? There are many reasons for this, but perhaps, the goal for each country is to make sure that every school emulates the good school found in their own backyard. As Pakistan turns its attention to improving education, it will have to draw 7 million out-of-school children into school. A critical task would be to turn every school in Pakistan—public, semi private, private and even ghost schools—into a good school. Provincial and territorial governments have the challenging uphill task of making every school operate like the schools described above. Pakistan recently became a member of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The collaboration of development partners working on education, fostered by GPE, will help Pakistan in its efforts to increase the number of good schools.