Pakistan's Total Education Spending Surpasses its Defense Budget

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan's public spending on education has more than doubled since 2010 to reach $8.6 billion a year in 2017, rivaling defense spending of $8.7 billion. Private spending on education by parents is even higher than the public spending with the total adding up to nearly 6% of GDP. Pakistan has 1.7 million teachers, nearly three times the number of soldiers currently serving in the country's armed forces. Unfortunately, the education outcomes do not yet reflect the big increases in spending. Why is it? Let's examine this in some detail.

Pakistan Education Budget:

The total money budgeted for education by the governments at the federal and provincial levels has increased from Rs. 304 billion in 2010-11 to Rs. 790 billion in 2016-17,  representing an average of 17.5% increase per year since 2010.

Source: Dawn Newspaper

Private Education Spending in Pakistan:

2012 Data from UNESCO and the World Bank shows that the private spending on education is about twice as much as the monies budgeted by federal and provincial governments in Pakistan.

Private/Public Spending on Education in Selected Countries. Source:...

Education Outcomes:

UNESCO and World Bank data from 2013 shows that only 52% of Pakistani kids and 48% of Indian kids reached expected standard of reading after 4 years of school, according to the Economist Magazine. It also shows that 46% of Pakistani children dropped out of school before completing 4 years of education.

Reading Performance in Selected Countries. Source: Economist

Education and Literacy Rates:

Pakistan's net primary enrollment rose from 42% in 2001-2002 to 57% in 2008-9 during Musharraf years. It has been essentially flat at 57% since 2009 under PPP and PML(N) governments.

Source: Economic Survey of Pakistan 2015-16

Similarly, the literacy rate for Pakistan 10 years or older rose from 45% in 2001-2002 to 56% in 2007-2008 during Musharraf years. It has increased just 4% to 60% since 2009-2010 under PPP and PML(N) governments.

Source: Economic Survey of Pakistan 2015-16

Pakistan's Human Development: 

Human development index reports on Pakistan released by UNDP confirm the ESP 2015 human development trends.Pakistan’s HDI value for 2013 is 0.537— which is in the low human development category—positioning the country at 146 out of 187 countries and territories. Between 1980 and 2013, Pakistan’s HDI value increased from 0.356 to 0.537, an increase of 50.7 percent or an average annual increase of about 1.25.

Pakistan HDI Components Trend 1980-2013 Source: Human Development R...

Overall, Pakistan's human development score rose by 18.9% during Musharraf years and increased just 3.4% under elected leadership since 2008. The news on the human development front got even worse in the last three years, with HDI growth slowing down as low as 0.59% — a paltry average annual increase of under 0.20 per cent.

Going further back to the  decade of 1990s when the civilian leadership of the country alternated between PML (N) and PPP,  the increase in Pakistan's HDI was 9.3% from 1990 to 2000, less than half of the HDI gain of 18.9% on Musharraf's watch from 2000 to 2007.

Bogus Teachers in Sindh:

In 2014, Sindh's provincial education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that "a large number of fake appointments were made in the education department during the previous tenure of the PPP government" when the ministry was headed by Khuhru's predecessor PPP's Peer Mazhar ul Haq. Khuhro was quoted by Dawn newspaper as saying that "a large number of bogus appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff had been made beyond the sanctioned strength" and without completing legal formalities as laid down in the recruitment rules by former directors of school education Karachi in connivance with district officers during 2012–13.

Ghost Schools in Balochistan:

In 2016, Balochistan province's education minister Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal was quoted by Express Tribune newspaper as telling his provincial legislature that  “about 900 ghost schools have been detected with 300,000 fake registrations of students, and out of 60,000, 15,000 teachers’ records are unknown.”

Absentee Teachers in Punjab:

A 2013 study conducted in public schools in Bhawalnagar district of Punjab found that 27.5% of the teachers are absent from classrooms from 1 to 5 days a month while 3.75% are absent more than 10 days a month. The absentee rate in the district's private schools was significantly lower. Another study by an NGO Alif Ailan conducted in Gujaranwala and Narowal reported that "teacher absenteeism has been one of the key impediments to an effective and working education apparatus."

Political Patronage:

Pakistani civilian rule has been characterized by a system of political patronage that doles out money and jobs to political party supporters at the expense of the rest of the population. Public sector jobs, including those in education and health care sectors, are part of this patronage system that was described by Pakistani economist Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, the man credited with the development of United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI) as follows:

"...every time a new political government comes in they have to distribute huge amounts of state money and jobs as rewards to politicians who have supported them, and short term populist measures to try to convince the people that their election promises meant something, which leaves nothing for long-term development. As far as development is concerned, our system has all the worst features of oligarchy and democracy put together." 

Summary:

Education spending in Pakistan has increased at an annual average rate of 17.5% since 2010. It has more than doubled since 2010 to reach $8.6 billion a year in 2017, rivaling defense spending of $8.7 billion. Private spending by parents is even higher than the public spending with the total adding up to nearly 6% of GDP. Pakistan has 1.7 million teachers, nearly three times the number of soldiers currently serving in the country's armed forces. However, the school enrollment and literacy rates have remained flat and the human development indices are stuck in neutral.  This is in sharp contrast to the significant improvements in outcomes from increased education spending seen during Musharraf years in 2001-2008. An examination of the causes shows that the corrupt system of political patronage tops the list. This system jeopardizes the future of the country by producing ghost teacher, ghost schools and absentee staff to siphon off the money allocated for children's education. Pakistani leaders need to reflect on this fact and try and protect education from the corrosive system of political patronage networks.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

History of Literacy in Pakistan

Reading and Math Performance in Pakistan vs India

Myths and Facts on Out-of-School Children

Who's Better For Pakistan's Human Development? Musharraf or Politic...

Corrosive Effects of Pakistan's System of Political Patronage

Development of Pakistan's Human Capital

Asian Tigers Brought Prosperity; Democracy Followed

Musharraf Accelerated Growth of Pakistan's Human and Financial Capital

[Riaz Haq]

VAN KALMTHOUT

Unicef education chief on the International Day of Education

https://www.dawn.com/news/1459510

According to government estimates, 40pc of all Pakistani children are out of school, 49pc of all girls and 40pc of boys are currently out of school.

The number of out-of-school children becomes higher at middle and secondary school levels. So very few children in Pakistan have an opportunity to complete matric and FA/F Sc.

However, Pakistan has managed to, on a gradual and continuous basis, reduce the total number of out-of-school children, which is a significant achievement considering the population growth.

This means that primary school education expansion has not only kept up with population growth but has gone beyond it.

For a country such as Pakistan, where population growth rates are high, the challenge is not only bringing existing out-of-school children into the education system, but each year there are greater numbers of children who need to be enrolled into primary school.

In the last three years that I have been in Pakistan, I have observed that there is a lot more attention and discussion on the number of out-of-school children, and education has emerged on top of policy agendas.

Efforts by successive provincial and federal governments, who have prioritised out-of-school children, have resulted in significant achievements.

The new government, in its national education policy framework has similarly identified the provision of equitable access to education as the top priority which is encouraging.

Accelerated learning programmes are also very important in countries such as Pakistan, where a large number of Pakistani children have never attended school, but are beyond the age where they can be enrolled in primary schools.

This is high on the new government’s agenda as well and we are heartened by this. All provinces are working on this model, and there are alternative programmes looking at how technology can support accelerated learning programmes.

In Punjab, there is a specific department to address these programmes. In Balochistan and Sindh, the provincial governments are making greater financial allocations which is very reassuring.

We are working with all governments to make multi-year sector plans because these are budgeted for and Unicef is providing technical support for this.

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Quality of education is equally important. Across the world, 617 million children and adolescents who do attend school cannot read or do basic math. This also a serious issue in Pakistan.

The World Bank’s latest research shows that, on average, a Pakistani child will go to school for 8.8 years, but in terms of learning, it only translates to 4.8 years.

This is a significant gap, even in comparison to other countries in South Asia, so a lot needs to be done.

Many countries are struggling to find ways to improve the quality of education in public schools. However, there are some approaches which do work.

For example, in Punjab, there have been some good experiences with the provision of scripted lessons, which support teachers in delivering lessons. This means that rather than reliance on training, scripted lessons followed by monitoring can ensure that the students are really learning.

[Riaz Haq]

Certain lobby is on rampage at defence #Budget2020

There's hardly .1% difference btw Education & Defence for FY2019-20 of GDP

Last year education ( 2.5% of GDP)

Punjab: 383b
Sindh: 239b
KPK: 143b
Bln: 60b
HEC: 45b
Federal:77b
Total: 947b

Defence: 1152b (Share of GDP: 2.6%)

https://twitter.com/Jana_Shah/status/1271473790954942464?s=20

[Riaz Haq]

#Sindh to raise #Education spending to 25.2% of provincial budget. A total of Rs244.5 billion for education, up from Rs212.4 bn for 2019-20. Rs300m has been allocated as Endowment Fund for NED University of #Engineering & #Technology #Karachi, #Pakistan https://www.dawn.com/news/1564176

Schools


Moreover, international donors also chip in with their share towards improving the quality of education in Sindh. The provincial government has adopted various key indicators for need assessments and performance evaluation of schools to help understand the needs and accordingly assign resources where needed. For FY 2020-21, Rs1bn has been allocated as grant in aid for Education Management Organization (EMO) for handing over management of various schools to EMOs.

“Moreover, we have allocated Rs6.6 billion for purchase of furniture and fixture, Rs6.1 billion for new activities with the help of international donor agencies, Rs2.3 billion for free textbooks, Rs1.8 billion for school management committee to meet the requirements of schools, Rs5 billion for repair and maintenance of school buildings, Rs480 million for an Emergent Need Fund for meeting new initiatives under Covid-19 and Rs663.4 million for educational assets of proscribed organisations of Sindh taken over by the government of Sindh,” the chief minister (Murad Aki Shah) said.

In school education, about the achievements in FY 2019-20, he said that they had profiled schools, provided essential facilities to 1,606 primary, elementary and high schools in 29 districts, carried out groundwork for making 15 English medium and six comprehensive schools operational under the PPP mode through EMOs.

In the next academic year, 10 more English medium and nine comprehensive high schools in nine districts are also going to be ungraded with all facilities of science/IT labs, libraries, etc. Also, there are plans for establishing 2,000 new early childhood care and education classrooms, training 2,500 early childhood education teachers and printing Rs4.93m sets of textbooks for all schools at taluka and district levels.

“In the next financial year 2020-21 we have set a number of targets under which we will provide requisite infrastructure, solar system, IT/science labs and auditoriums in 35 existing schools,” he added.

He also said that in the current FY 2019-20, Rs9.5bn was allocated for the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) and that there has been no change in that amount.

Colleges

There are a total of 146 boys’ colleges, 131 girls’ colleges and 50 co-education colleges in Sindh running under the administration of the college education department, whereas the total student enrolment is 436,980.

In order to manage college education in a Covid-19 perspective, the college education department is planning to launch a programme of distance learning by establishing computer labs, centralised teaching and utilising web services. For enhancing technology-based interventions in the college education department, Rs451m has been allocated in FY 2020-21.

Moreover, Rs300m has been allocated as Endowment Fund for NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi and Rs30m is kept as grant-in-aid for the Government College for Information Technology Guru Nagar, Hyderabad.

Universities and boards

In the current FY 2019-20, sufficient funds were disbursed to public-sector universities as grant-in-aid. Education boards were also provided funds to pay examination fee, which was required to be paid by students earlier. The establishment of the Benazir Bhutto Chair at Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur is expected to be completed in FY 2020-21.

In FY 2020-21 the allocation of Rs5bn is proposed for grant to universities, Rs2bn to educational boards and Rs1.2bn for scholarship to position holders/A1 graders in Sindh. Besides Rs392m is allocated for various cadet colleges while Rs259m is for various public schools. A further Rs50m is proposed for performance incentive under ‘Programme for Results’.

[Riaz Haq]

1. More than 4.5 million children are enrolled in Sindh's schools
2. 133,000 teachers have been appointed for 49,103 schools
3. In 26,260 schools, facility for drinking water is not available

https://www.geo.tv/latest/334312-more-than-10000-government-schools...


More than 10,000 government schools are nonfunctional in Sindh, the Reform and Support of the Sindh Education and Literacy Department has revealed in a report.

Titled "Profiting for Government Schools," the report shows data from 2018-19 and has been released after a gap of two years. According to the report, there are more than 4.5 million children enrolled in the province's schools.

The report says that 133,000 teachers have been appointed for 49,103 schools, out of which only 36,659 schools are functional.

In 26,260 schools, there is no facility for drinking water, while 19,469 are without washrooms' facility. The report further revealed that more than 31,000 schools do not have electricity.


Moreover, 21,00-plus schools do not have boundary walls, while over 47,000 schools are deprived of lab facilities, while as many as 36,000 do not have playgrounds.

It is pertinent to mention here that a chunk of schools, more than 47,000, do not have libraries in them — a necessary facility for students' grooming.

The report said that 2,812,000 male and 1,749,140 female students were enrolled in the schools.

As many as 2,91,9862 students are enrolled in primary, 185,047 in middle, 140,032 in elementary, 918,706 in secondary, and 397,493 in higher secondary schools.

Meanwhile, out of the total 49,103 school buildings in the province, 14,998 are considered to be in satisfactory conditions, 8,426 are weary, while 14,977 need repairs.

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25.2pc of revenue to be spent on education, says Murad

While presenting Sindh’s education budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 on Wednesday, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that the budget of education sector, in a macro perspective, had been increased to Rs244.5 billion when compared with Rs212.4bn for 2019-20.

“Despite resource constraints we have allocated funds which is 25.2 per cent of our current revenue budget,” he said.

He said that education was one of the key priority areas for the government of Sindh. “We aim at improving access to equitable, inclusive and quality education for all to realise their fullest potential and contribute to the development of society and economy, thus creating a sense of nationhood, inculcating values of tolerance, social justice and democracy in students,” he said.

He explained that in order to manage education-related functions in an efficient manner, enhance the quality of education and provide better facilities at educational institutions, the department of education was divided into two departments — the school education and literacy department (SELD) and the college education department (CED) back in 2016.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan to spend $8.8 billion on #defense in FY 2021-22. The new #military budget will represent about 16% of total government expenditure, 3% of #GDP. #PakistanArmy gets nearly 48% of it, while the Pakistan Air Force (#PAF) 21% & #PakistanNavy 11%

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/pakistan-increases-d...

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1405181275753771008?s=20

The Pakistan government has announced a defence budget of PKR1.37 trillion (USD8.78 billion) for fiscal year (FY) 2021–22. The allocation is a 6.2% increase over the original 2020–21 defence expenditure of PKR1.29 trillion.

The new defence budget will represent about 16% of the government's total expenditure for 2021–22 and has been announced against the backdrop of Pakistan's improving economy. In 2020–21 the country's GDP is forecast to climb by nearly 4%, despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.


The bulk of Pakistan's defence budget is allocated to Defence Services, with a small amount for Defence Administration. The largest expenditure in the former appropriation is employee-related expenses, which in 2021–22 receives PKR481.6 billion, a 1% year-on-year increase.

Defence Services also includes physical assets and operating expenses, which in 2021–22 receive PKR391.5 billion and PKR327.1 billion, increases of 9% and 8% respectively. Expenses for civil works is PKR169.7 billion, while Defence Administration receives PKR3.27 billion.

In terms of the armed services, the Pakistan Army will receive PKR651.5 billion in 2021–22 (or nearly 48% of the total), while the Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Navy have been allocated PKR291.1 billion and PKR148.7 billion (or 21% and 11%) respectively. The majority of the remainder is allocated for defence-wide requirements.

In a separate appropriation, Pakistan's Defence Production Division, which supports the national defence industry, will receive PKR1.74 billion in 2021–22, an increase of nearly 11%.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan boosts #defense budget by nearly 6% in PKR to $7.19 billion in FY 2023. Official figure for #military expenditures amounts to about 2.2% of its gross domestic product — a drop from 2.45% of its #GDP compared to the fiscal 2021-2022 time frame.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2022/06/10/pakistan...

Though mainly covering salary increases, some of the extra money is earmarked for infrastructure such as the continued development of Jinnah Naval Base in Ormara, the Navy’s main operational base, and a naval air base in Turbat.

Official figures state the 83 billion rupee (U.S. $412 million) increase pushes the defense budget up to nearly 1.45 trillion rupees (U.S. $7.19 billion). That implies the 2021 defense budget was about $7.49 billion.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Sweden-based think think, found that Pakistan’s military-related expenditures for 2021 came to $11.3 billion. However, the difference could come down to how the procurement budget is created.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Sweden-based think think, found that Pakistan’s military-related expenditures for 2021 came to $11.3 billion (including pensions). However, the difference could come down to how the procurement budget is created.


Amid the ongoing threat of domestic terrorism and the need to maintain a credible deterrent against India, the fate of Pakistan’s economy does not bode well, according to Pakistan expert Claude Rakisits, who teaches at the Australian National University.

“Pakistan’s economic situation is in dire straits. This makes it difficult for the government to buy new hardware or even plan ahead for new acquisitions,” he said.

Brian Cloughley, an analyst and former Australian defense attache to Islamabad, has tracked developments in Pakistan for decades, and he doubts the government’s fiscal approach will be different from previous ones that failed to address underlying issues, including the country’s elite effectively ruling for their own benefit, leading to Pakistan’s cycle of economic woes.


“It is likely, however, that there will be announcement of deferment of expenditure plans for at least some acquisitions, if only to try to convince the [World Bank and International Monetary Fund] that their present, fairly benevolent policy on Pakistan should be maintained,” he said.

But he also believes Pakistan can likely rely on its allies and other friendly nations to carry the load. “The Chinese and the Saudis will probably continue to support Pakistan’s military posture and plans, and the current — most serious — economic crisis will have little effect on the military overall.”

Rakisits agreed that Pakistan might rely on China, although Beijing will likely step in for its own benefit.

“China has a vital interest in ensuring that not only does Pakistan’s economic situation not get worse, which could threaten the overall stability of the country and the viability of its CPEC project, but that it is in a position to maintain its defense capability,” Rakisits said, referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is meant to improve infrastructure to strengthen trade between the two countries.

“Accordingly, It’s almost certain that Beijing will assist Pakistan financially in one way or another, especially in light of the West’s increased interest in selling military hardware to India,” he added.

[Riaz Haq]

Defence allocation for 2022-23: Views of experts and industry
In his view, “As has become the norm, (Indian) defence pensions account for almost 23 percent of the total defence budget.”

https://www.financialexpress.com/defence/defence-allocation-for-202...

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Chris Kay
@christopherkay
Pensions eat up nearly quarter of #India's defense outlay. “The argument that pension bills will drop because of short-term employment is doubtful. But soon there will be a large body of weapons and combat trained men without employment”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/india-recruits-s...

https://twitter.com/christopherkay/status/1536672800378744833?s=20&...

[Riaz Haq]

How Maqsad’s Mobile Education Can Help More Pakistani Students Learn

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidprosser/2023/03/16/how-maqsads-mo...

Maqsad aims to make education more accessible to 100 million Pakistani students through a learning platform delivered via a mobile app. The platform offers teaching and testing, and can respond to queries. It seeks to disrupt the country’s out-of-school education sector, which largely consists of expensive tuition services that most families can’t afford.

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Growing up in Pakistan, high-school friends Rooshan Aziz and Taha Ahmed, the founders of edtech start-up Maqsad, were very conscious of their good fortune. Aziz struggled with dyslexia but his parents were able to afford after-school academic support that enabled him to complete his education. Ahmed, meanwhile, benefited from a series of academic scholarships that gave him a headstart in life.

Fast forward to the Covid-19 pandemic, Aziz and Ahmed were both working in London, and watched with horror as Pakistan tried to move to online learning, but found itself unable to scale up a technology platform capable of supporting large numbers of students. The crisis acted as an impetus to launch Maqsad, which is today announcing a $2.8 million funding round as it reaches 1 million users only six months after its launch.

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“Maqsad offers an exceptional after-school learning experience for students at a fraction of the cost of existing alternatives,” Ahmed explains. “Our focus on student problems is at the core of our mission, and we’ve collected feedback from over 20,000 students and teachers across Pakistan to ensure learning outcomes are being achieved.”

Certainly, the company has grown remarkably quickly. Since its launch last year, the Maqsad app has been downloaded more than 1 million times and is consistently ranked as the number one education app in Pakistan on the Google Play Store. The app provides access to high-quality content developed by experienced teachers, but also uses artificial intelligence tools to offer personalised learning.

Aimed initially at students aged 15 to 19 – often preparing for board or university entrance exams – the platform aims to have real impact in a market where student-teacher ratios, at 44:1, are among the highest in the world. Maqsad – the name is the Urdu word for “purpose” – offers a freemium model, enabling students to access a range of features and services at little or no cost. Over time, it plans to offer more content aimed at younger students.

From an investment perspective, the business offers exposure to an education market that is worth $37 billion in Pakistan. While other technology-enabled providers are also targeting the market – including Abwaab and Nearpeer – Maqsad regards its primary competitors as the providers of physical tuition centres. These are unaffordable for many students, it points out, or simply inaccessible for those who do not live in urban locations where such centres are located.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan: Technology boosts education reform in remote areas

https://www.globalpartnership.org/results/stories-of-change/pakista...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Education in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Sindh provinces has been hampered by natural disasters, poor infrastructure and remoteness, and further exacerbated by political, economic and security problems.
From WhatsApp groups to biometric fingerprint systems, innovative technology has helped with building and restoring schools and improving teacher retention in these remote regions.
Since 2014, GPE’s support has led to 53,000 previously out-of-school children enrolled in school in Balochistan, and the tracking of educational data in all 29 districts in Sindh.

Supported by a US$34 million GPE grant, the government of Balochistan set up digital profiles to record land transfers and follow school construction, supporting the completion of schools and allowing education officials to track progress.

Large-scale surveys gathered geospatial data, an innovative and cost-effective way to identify abandoned buildings that could be transformed into schools.

Balochistan also established criteria for the selection of school sites, ensuring no other school existed within a 1.5 km radius and that locations enabled at least 20 out-of-school children to attend. This resulted in schools being built in remote areas with the most need.


Since 2015, 700 schools with new or renovated buildings have been completed and more than 100 girls’ primary schools upgraded to secondary. With GPE support, education authorities began to track real-time data in 14,000 schools, including teacher attendance and enrollment.

This has helped with the allocation of funding to locations with the greatest need. Android apps also record the physical infrastructure of schools, providing timely information on the functionality of toilets, drinking water and electricity.

School monitoring using technology
Both provinces use tech solutions to support management and ensure accountability in the education system. In Balochistan, apps keep track of teacher attendance, recording when teachers are within a certain geo-radius of the school; they work offline in more remote areas, uploading information when there is network access.

Through a US$66 million GPE grant, the Sindh province used tech tools to ensure teachers were deployed to the areas where they were most needed. Fingerprint-based biometric and photograph systems supported by GPS coordinates are also able to track teaching hours.

Greater incentive and validation for teachers
In a significant boost to quality learning, GPE supported the recruitment and training of qualified teachers, with emphasis placed on hiring female teachers to increase girls’ enrollment. Since 2015, 1,200 teachers have been recruited in Balochistan after passing the national testing service exam.

Better teaching and consistently open schools have helped increase student enrollment, with over 56,000 more girls enrolling in public elementary, primary and middle schools in Sindh.

[Riaz Haq]

No School Stands Alone
How market dynamics affect the performance of public and private schools

https://www.educationnext.org/no-school-stands-alone-how-market-dyn...

Jishnu Das


In the United States, 9 percent of K–12 students attend private schools, but in low- and middle-income countries, private schools account for 20 percent of all primary enrollment and are rapidly gaining ground. In Pakistan, the number of private schools rose to more than 70,000 by 2015, up from 3,000 in 1982; by 2015, these schools educated 34 percent of Pakistani children enrolled in primary schools. In contrast to private schools in the United States, Pakistan’s are highly affordable, and the majority are secular.


This growth in private schooling comes at a unique moment in global education: low-income countries have managed to substantially increase enrollments at all levels of schooling, but they have yet to improve what children learn. For instance, the unprecedented speed at which primary (and now secondary and college) enrollment has risen in low-income countries dwarfs the historical experience of today’s rich countries. Yet, in countries such as India and Pakistan, when children are tested at the end of 3rd grade, one-third of them cannot subtract two-digit numbers, less than a sixth can read a simple sentence in English, and less than half can read a simple sentence in the vernacular language, Urdu. Across low-income countries, test scores are so low that the situation has been dubbed a global learning crisis by organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO.

The growth in private schools, coming at the same time as the shift in focus from enrollment to learning, has polarized the education community in low- and middle-income countries. Some people favor heavily regulating or even shutting down private schools, based on the belief that they provide substandard education to children of parents who are unable to assess the quality of schools; others believe that private schools should be encouraged and indeed subsidized through the public purse because they provide a valuable option in places with failing public schools. Missing from this debate is a detailed empirical picture of what the growth of private schools means for education markets more broadly. How does the rise in private schooling affect demand for schools in both the private and public sectors, and how do schools respond to any changing demand? Does more competition increase quality? Should governments maintain their focus on improving the quality of public schools, alleviate constraints on private alternatives—or perhaps do both?

Learning from the LEAPS Project

Research from the Learning and Education Achievement in Pakistan Schools project, or LEAPS, sheds light on these questions and holds implications for public policy in Pakistan and around the globe. To understand how the growth of private schools was transforming the education landscape in low-income countries, in 2003 I teamed up with Tahir Andrabi of Pomona College and Asim Ijaz Khwaja of Harvard University to launch the LEAPS project, a study of all the schools in 112 villages in the province of Punjab. The province has more than 100,000 schools, of which 60,000 were private in 2015. (By comparison, the state of California, with the largest public-education system in the United States, has about 10,000 public schools.) The villages in the LEAPS project were selected from those that had at least one private school in 2003; these villages are larger and somewhat wealthier than the average village in Punjab, which in turn has the lowest poverty rate of all Pakistani provinces. At the time the project began, about 60 percent to 70 percent of the province’s rural population lived in villages with at least one private school. Between 2003 and 2011, the LEAPS team tracked more than 800 schools in these villages, interviewed more than 1,000 principals and 2,000 teachers, and tested more than 70,000 children to gauge their foundational skills in literacy and numeracy.