Alif
Ailaan and Sustainable Development Policy Institute today  releases first
ever Pakistan District Education Rankings, an in-depth assessment of the state
of education in the country. While the results are not heartening, they
highlight specific issues in the quality of education and the availability of
facilities district by district.

“The
new government has a massive task of tackling the education emergency that
Pakistan is  facing. It is a matter of great shame for us that 25 million
children are out of school. Strong  political will is needed to change
this. We not only need to focus on increasing enrolment but also ensure that
quality is not neglected. My government is preparing a plan for accelerated
delivery of education for all,” said Baligh ur Rahman, State Minister for
Education while speaking at the occasion.

This
ground-breaking study, conducted in association with the Sustainable
Development Policy  Institute (SDPI), shows how widely education standards
vary across the country. One of the  goals of the report is to serve as a
benchmark against which the performance of politicians,  administrators
and education providers can be assessed. It will also provide a baseline
against  which future progress or deterioration can be measured.

“The
big picture in education is stark and demands urgent action,” said Mosharraf
Zaidi, Team Leader, Alif Ailaan. “With this report we hope to generate informed
public debate about  Pakistan’s education emergency.”

The
report dispels commonly held perceptions, such as the idea that providing
infrastructure  and facilities will automatically improve the overall
quality of education. In fact this is not the  case, as demonstrated by
the findings for Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), which ranks highest  in
terms of the quality of education but lowest in terms of school infrastructure.

Similarly,
it is surprising that no district in Sindh makes it in the top fifty, not even
Karachi. Meanwhile, Punjab takes the top position in the overall provincial
rankings while Balochistan is  the worst performing province. “The bottom
line here is that very few districts are performing as Pakistani parents would
want them to. This should be a wake-up call for the government. We need to see
a dramatic  improvement in education, if we are not to lose the next
generation to illiteracy and poverty,”  said the principal author of the
report, Asif Saeed Memon, of SDPI.

An
interactive ‘Education and Budget’ map, the first of its kind in Pakistan, was
also launched at  the event. Available on the Alif Ailaan website, the map
allows users to access key education statistics for each district and to send a
letter to elected representatives in each constituency, pressing them to play
their role in ending Pakistan’s education emergency. To reinforce the message,
Alif Ailaan will also post a copy of each letter sent through the map directly
to the MNA or MPA in question.