Despite some progress in human capital development, the report highlights that the country’s efforts in education reform and increased budgetary allocations have yet to translate into significant improvements in educational outcomes.
The District Education Performance Index (DEPIx) Report 2020-23, released by the Pakistan Planning Commission on Friday, has painted a bleak picture of the country’s education system, categorizing it as ‘low’ in performance. The report, which evaluates educational outcomes across 134 districts, highlights critical issues and suggests urgent reforms to improve the sector.
According to the DEPIx Report, Pakistan’s national average score stands at 53.46, placing the country firmly in the “low” performance bracket. The report is structured across five domains: infrastructure and access, learning, inclusion (equity and technology), governance and management, and public financing. Among these, infrastructure and access received the highest score of 58.95, indicating some progress in expanding educational opportunities. Inclusion, which encompasses equity and technology, followed as the second-highest scoring domain.
The report notes that public financing received the lowest score, underscoring the need for increased and more effective investment in education. The learning domain also scores poorly, reflecting persistently low educational outcomes. Governance and management, while slightly better than learning, still fall into the “low” category, primarily due to teacher shortages and high bureaucratic turnover.
Punjab performs best
Alarmingly, none of the 134 districts assessed fell into the ‘very high’ performance category, and only Islamabad was categorized as ‘high.’ The report reveals a significant disparity in performance, with over half of the districts – 76 out of 134 – classified as ‘low.’ This low performance is particularly pronounced in Balochistan and Sindh, where 33 and 22 districts, respectively, fall into this category. Notably, all districts in Balochistan are in the ‘low’ performance category, indicating severe challenges across the province.
In terms of provincial performance, Punjab emerged as the top-performing province with a composite score of 61.39, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with a score of 54.88. Sindh and Balochistan trailed behind, scoring 51.49 and 45.70, respectively. The report also highlighted that the top 10 districts for education performance are exclusively from Punjab and KP, with seven from Punjab and two from KP. Notably, no districts from Sindh or Balochistan are represented among the top performers.
Intra-provincial disparities
The report’s findings also reveal significant intra-provincial disparities. KP shows the greatest variation, with districts such as Haripur, Chitral, and Abbottabad among the top performers, while Kolai Palas, Upper Kohistan, and Lower Kohistan rank among the lowest. There is a nearly 30-point gap between the best and worst-performing districts in KP. Punjab and Balochistan exhibit less variation, with most districts in Punjab falling into the medium category and all districts in Balochistan in the low category. Sindh shows moderate variation, with most districts in the low category except for the urban centers of Karachi and Hyderabad.
The DEPIx Report underscores the slow pace of human capital development in Pakistan, which poses challenges to realizing the potential demographic dividend and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Despite some progress in human capital development, the report highlights that the country’s efforts in education reform and increased budgetary allocations have yet to translate into significant improvements in educational outcomes.
The report also addresses the complexity and fragmentation of education data, which have often hindered effective policymaking. In response to these challenges, the Planning Commission has integrated various school education indicators into composite scorecards to better track and address educational performance.
As the country faces an education emergency declared by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in May, the report serves as a critical call to action for policymakers and stakeholders to prioritize educational reforms and investment to improve the quality and accessibility of education across Pakistan.
Image: UNOPS
