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Crisis in Education: Exploring the Root Causes and Challenges of Pakistan’s Learning Deficit
Introduction
Pakistan’s rapidly growing population and emerging economy make it essential to invest in quality education to unlock the country’s potential and establish long-term stability. Education is a fundamental human right and a pillar of national development, and for Pakistan, it is the key to ‘unlocking its potential’. Additionally, Pakistan continues to grapple with a violent education crisis in the public sector.
Unlike Higher Education in Pakistan, there exists a crisis in Basic Education in Pakistan. The crisis is marked by fundamental deficits in public education access, infrastructure, teacher quality, and entrenched gender inequities. Education, ranging from the primary level to the tertiary level, requires a wide array of limitations addressed to meet the country’s expected potential alongside ongoing research and reform trajectories.
The education crisis and its effects
Pakistan’s education crisis paints a concerning picture. As of 2023, Pakistan is still one of the countries that has the largest gap of school-aged children with a population of around 23 million children in the age bracket of 5 to 16 that are out of school. The current projection for the national literacy rate is stagnant at around 58% and it is projected that the disparity gap is only widening due to sociocultural issues. As the culture in rural areas of Pakistan evolves, over 50% of school-aged girls are likely to remain completely absent from the education system.
Disparities across provinces are just as pronounced. For example, while Punjab boasts literacy levels over 64%, Balochistan lags behind at below 46%. Enrolled students also demonstrate poor learning outcomes; less than half of grade 5 students are able to read a grade 2 level narrative or perform basic arithmetic.
Structural and Governance Challenges
In Pakistan, the combination of systemic, economic, and cultural factors creates a low level educational climate. Public awareness, oversite, and even the absence of a quality school, especially lacking in rural regions, is a persistent challenge. In 2023, around 23 million children or nearly 44% of the estimated 5-16 aged population, remained unserved by the education system. Add to this, lack of financial resources to bare even the most basic schooling necessities, especially among families with daughters, is another burden.
Since the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010, which devolved education to the provinces, governance as a whole, has faced a slow fracture. While local governance was the intent behind the amendment, it has spawned inconsistency in policy execution and inter-agency coordination. Resource allocation, oversight of curriculum quality and evaluation, and the evaluation of outcomes in relation to inter-provincial benchmarks are all intended to be uniform yet are applied in a patchwork manner.
In addition, education financing in Pakistan only reaches between 1.7% and 2.5% of GDP, well below the UNESCO recommended 4-6% threshold. The available budget severely constrains the scope of reforms, investment in the teaching infrastructure, and the ability to attract and retain quality teaching staff.
Access Constraints and Infrastructure Deficits
In Pakistan, a concerning portion of schools face inadequate infrastructure and a lack of essential amenities. Only 54% of government schools have electricity, 68% provide clean drinking water, and 66% have functional toilets. Many rural schools are limited to a single, unfurnished room, or they are held outdoors and lack basic furniture and boundary walls.
Within underdeveloped or remote regions, lengthy travel to schools, coupled with dangerous travel routes, particularly deters girls from attending. The lack of sensitive to gender needs, like female staff or toilets designated for girls, makes the matter worse. These factors, particularly in underdeveloped and remote regions, contribute to high dropout rates and unequal access.
Absenteeism and Teacher Quality
The issue of teacher quality persist. Many educators receive inadequate training, and hiring tends to be more political than based on the required qualifications. For example, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, only 60% of teachers were able to pass a Grade 5 math test, a score just above the 40% pass rate among students on the same test.
Teacher absenteeism remains persistent, especially in rural areas. Due to lacking systems of accountability and poor incentives, teachers are frequently absent. In schools with only one teacher, absenteeism can halt education for entire regions. The end result is that even children who are enrolled in school are attending poorly taught classes.
Curriculum and Learning Outcomes
The curriculum for many subjects is dominated by rote learning and memorization. This outdated approach does not enable students to think critically, creatively, or tackle real-world problems. The evaluation systems in place are solely based on exams and do not include methods of continuous assessment.
More than 50% of students in grade 5 do not have the ability to read grade 2 level Urdu stories. The same percentage is also unable to perform basic arithmetic. This educational gap continues throughout a student’s academic career and ultimately diminishes their employability and productivity in the future.
Cultural Norms and Gender Inequality
Cultural aspects also present have a great importance in relation to educational access. Established traditions, early marriages, and gender biases heavily restrict access to education for girls, especially in conservative or tribal areas. Many families actively prioritize schooling for boys, viewing education for girls as either unnecessary or dangerous.
Programs such as the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) do attempt to incentivize attendance by paying for female attendance, but do not fully mitigate the overarching concerns, cultural attitudes, and the predominant lack of female educators that dissuade enrollment and retention for girls.
Fragmentation, Corruption, and Governance Gaps
The governance gaps arising from the fragmentation of the devolved education system have led to weak implementation of inconsistent policies. Due to a lack of political autonomy and technical capacity, the provincial education departments are unable to effectively drive meaningful change.
Corruption is a significant issue, evidenced by the existence of ghost schools that are funded despite having no actual students, alongside the politicized appointment of teachers without regard to merit. Such systemic issues only serve to erode the already limited public confidence and credibility of the educational initiatives.
The Situation of Higher Education in Pakistan
Looking at the higher education sector, the outlook for Pakistan is relatively more favorable even as the country continues to grapple with basic education. Over the last twenty years, the higher education landscape has been reshaped by aggressive reforms from the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Considerable investments have been made in research, faculty, advanced digital systems, and international partnerships. This resulted into the establishment of Top Ranking Universities in Pakistan
HEC integrated policies have brought modern frameworks to education sectors as they have incorporated an outcome-based education model which favors innovation, critical thinking, and practical competencies. Almost all disciplines, specifically STEM, business, and health sciences have adopted contemporary scholastic frameworks which are at par with global standards.
Pakistan’s output in research has seen significant improvement. Programs such as the National Research Program for Universities (NRPU) alongside faculty development programs like the Tenure Track System (TTS) have led to an increase in academic publishing, particularly in biotechnology, engineering, and agriculture.
Pakistan’s several high ranking universities have been included in international and regional rankings, which is a first for Pakistan. These universities are being recognized for their academic standards, research, international collaborations, and innovation. Such institutions are the first to offer postgraduate programs and are instrumental in talent and entrepreneurship development, policy analysis, and research on national issues.
There is still a major need to address the issues of lack of equitable access to higher education, underfunding of public universities, and imbalances from region to region. Regardless, the foundation set from HEC reforms pave way for further progress.
Functions of Private Schools and Madrasas
The presence of private schools, especially low-cost ones, has grown remarkably, and they now educate a significant share of students in Pakistan. Although private schools are often more accessible than public schools in terms of their learning environments and outcomes, they remain out of reach for low-income families, and many of them are unregulated.
Private madrasas do provide education in neglected regions. While some do provide education in a more organized manner, a large number of them instruct only religious education and ignore modern disciplines such as science, mathematics, and technology. Attempts at assimilation of madrasas into the education system have faced delays and encountered significant opposition.
Educational Attainments and Other Suggestions
Pakistan possesses a range of untapped opportunities for advancement and transformation, especially in regard to the persisting the education crisis — readily addressing the following policy recommendations is one way to progress beyond them:
Boost Public Investment: Pakistan currently sits far below 4% of GDP in education spending, which is necessary for addressing infrastructure, teacher and material resources, and learning materials such as books.
Enhance Accountability and Teacher Training: Establish a structured hiring and evaluation framework, with timed appraisals and ongoing skill-developing initiatives, for all qualified teaching staff.
Update Evaluation Systems and Curriculum: Educational content should target 21st-century skills rather than rote memorization and evaluation; a shift to competency-based assessments is required.
Encourage Educational Attainment for Girls: Fund community-based advocacy programs to promote education while constructing schools tailored to the needs of young girls.
Combat Corruption and Improve Governance: Implement allocated funding tracking and attendance monitoring, as well as tracking learning outcomes on technology systems at the school level.
Support for Higher Education: Continue to empower and fund the HEC, as well as widen the access to quality tertiary education throughout the regions.
Conclusion
Addressing the education crisis in Pakistan is a challenging endeavor since it is multi-faceted and touches all levels of society, from primary education in rural areas to the research institutions of urban universities. While the public education system has historically faced challenges with access and infrastructure, there are positive signs in governance within the public system and progress in higher education.
To realize its transformative development ambitions, Pakistan needs to prioritize education as a strategic imperative, resolve the dire low literacy and numeracy rates, modernize curriculum, improve the teaching workforce, and ensure quality education for all—irrespective of gender, geography, or socioeconomic status. Simultaneously, the positive trend in higher education should continue to be enhanced, as it is one of the most powerful drivers of long-term change in the country.
Citations
UNICEF Pakistan – Education: https://www.unicef.org/pakistan/education
Australian Academy of Science Report: https://academy.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/report-reveals-education-crisis-pakistan
World Bank Education Data on Pakistan: https://datatopics.worldbank.org/dataviz/girls-education-pakistan
WENR – Education in Pakistan Overview: https://wenr.wes.org/2020/02/education-in-pakistan
The Express Tribune – Ghost Schools: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2054047/ghost-schools-haunt-education-sector
Brookings – Madrassas and Education Reform: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reforming-education-in-pakistan-madrassahs-inclusive-development-and-the-potential-for-change/
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics – Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2021-22
ASER Pakistan – Annual Status of Education Report 2022: http://aserpakistan.org/index.php?func=report
UNESCO Institute for Statistics – Pakistan Country Profile: http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/pk
Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training – Pakistan Education Statistics 2021-22
Authors
Mr. Farhan S. Sherazi is Head of NUR Centre for Research and Policy and Director – Professional Development at NUR International University / Fatima Memorial College of Medicine & Dentistry / Saida Waheed College of Nursing
Mr. Robert Williams is Technical / Lead Analyst at American University of Sharjah, UAE