Pakistan's education crisis: 25 million children out of school, reveals CSA report

Two years after declaring a National Education Emergency, Pakistan continues to face a critical crisis with 25.1 to 26 million children out of school. A comparative policy review by the Civil Services Academy (CSA) reveals that the issue is no longer policy formulation but a failure of execution caused by weak governance, administrative fragmentation, inadequate financing, and deep provincial disparities. The report notes that public investment remains drastically low; for instance, Sindh and Balochistan spend 81% to 90% of their education budgets on salaries, leaving minimal funds for development. Renowned education economist Dr Faisal Bari of the Lahore University of Management Sciences highlights that overall education spending has dropped below 1% of GDP, far beneath the UN’s 4% benchmark.

Provincial challenges vary significantly:

• Punjab: Holds the highest absolute burden with 9.6 to 10.4 million out-of-school children, driven by high dropout rates. Stark regional inequalities exist, particularly in South Punjab, where Rajanpur reaches a 48% out-of-school rate.
• Sindh: Has 7.4 million out-of-school children. A severe institutional bottleneck between numerous primary schools and scarce secondary schools causes 54% of children to exit after the primary level. Recent floods also damaged half of its public schools.
• Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: Accounts for 4.9 million out-of-school children due to difficult terrain, security issues, and an acute shortage of female teachers.
• Balochistan: Suffers from extreme infrastructural deficits and vast distances. Out of 15,270 schools, 3,617 are non-functional or ghost institutions, and girls comprise 78% of their out-of-school population.
• Federal/Other Territories: Rural Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir also face high dropout rates due to informal settlements, remote geography, and maternal illiteracy.

Additionally, education expert Dr Abdul Hameed notes that nearly 30% of out-of-school children have some form of disability, exposing a major gap in mainstream inclusion. Dr Bari also connects high dropout rates to malnutrition affecting 40% of children, insufficient infrastructure, and poor learning quality that fails to translate into employment.

To reverse this crisis, the CSA report recommends structural overhauls, including establishing a unified National Student Registry linked with NADRA’s B-Form for real-time tracking, integrating formal and non-formal data, providing targeted financial incentives for remote female teachers, and empowering autonomous district education authorities. While Punjab officials point to ongoing interventions like school meals, public-private partnerships, and outsourcing through the Punjab Education Foundation, the CSA review warns that without deep systemic accountability and funding reforms, the education emergency will remain entirely symbolic.