A district education ranking has rated Chakwal the highest-ranking district in the country followed Rawalpindi and Attock.
The
Alif-Ailaan Pakistan District Education Rankings 2014 divulge wide
variations in the quality of education across Pakistan’s 146 districts.
The ranking measures district-level performance in terms of access,
attainment, achievement and gender parity at primary level.
The study
has been conducted by Alif-Ailaan and SDPI from already available data
of various government and nongovernmental organisations.
Out of a
maximum education score of 100, no district reached the level of 90 and
only eight districts have scored in 80s. Among top 20 districts, 14 are
from Punjab, 3 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), one each from
Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) along with Islamabad, and none
from Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. 
The lowest ranking districts
are from Balochistan and FATA with many of agencies and areas not
included in the ranking due to insufficient data.  Last year Poonch had
topped the district ranking in the country scoring 82.94 but this year
it was placed at 9 with 79.12 score.
In terms of province and
territory wise ranking, Islamabad Capital Territory tops the raking
followed by Punjab, AJK, GB, Sindh, KPK, Balochistan and FATA.
The
report says that districts in Punjab, especially those in the northern
part of the province, dominate the education ranking. All 36 districts
in the province score above 50 on the education index, compared to 35
out of 36 last year. 
The highest-ranking districts in the province
are Chakwal, Rawalpindi and Attock while Ranjanpur, Rahim Yar Khan and
Muzaffargarh are the poorest performing districts. 
Minister for
Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi maintained that
education should have been on the priority of the government instead of
projects like metro bus.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) is the second
worst performing province despite the government’s commitment to improve
the situation. This is owing to gender disparities as well as poor
learning outcomes in the province. Malakand and Haripur are the
highest-ranking districts in KPK while Kohistan and Shangla are the
poorest performing districts.
‘It seems from the rankings that
Pakistan is only Punjab’, said Bushra Gohar, former Member of National
Assembly. ‘All taxpayers’ money goes to security and for spending on
education we see towards donors. The state’s narrative of security
should be changed now and it is time that we start investing on our
children’.
In 2014, Karachi is the only district in Sindh to appear
in the top 50, compared to none last year. Hyderabad is placed at 53.
Thatta, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot are the lowest-scoring districts in
Sindh.
As was the case in 2013, districts from Balochistan continue
to perform poorly. As a whole, the province showed the greatest
improvement in education scores compared to other provinces and regions
(11.4 percentage points). Gwadar and Quetta are the highest-ranking
districts in the province, while Dera Bugti and Killa Abdullah are the
lowest-scoring districts.
When it comes to middle school level
district education ranking, three districts of GB – Skardu, Hunza and
Gilgit – have grabbed top three positions respectively.
The study
also ranks districts according to availability of basic school level
infrastructure and facilities. According to district school
infrastructure scores at primary level Bannu is on the top following
Islamabad and Lahore.  Only 6 of the country’s 146 districts scored more
than 90 in the school infrastructure index. Punjab and KPK dominate the
infrastructure rankings, with 48 of the top 50 districts in one of
these two provinces.
Sindh has seen a significant decline in the
availability of infrastructure dropping more than 20 points. AJK,
Balochistan, FATA and GB continue to rate poorly in terms of
infrastructure.

Source: http://www.nation.com.pk/islamabad/23-May-2014/chakwal-tops-education-ranking