Pakistan is in the spotlight for having the largest number of out-of-school children (26 million) and millions not learning the basics (ASER 2010-2023). Deficits in access and quality morph into an equity gap with gender and generational impacts. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, within nine weeks of stepping into office, declared a National Education Emergency (May 8, 2024), followed by 14 time-bound directives through the mobilization of the ministries of Finance, Health, and Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety (PASS), as well as BISP, the National Vocational Technical Training Commission (NAVTCC), SBP, SECP, etc.
The Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training (MoFE&PT) is tasked with coordinating and enabling provincial consensus, as education is fully devolved for policy, planning, curriculum, financing, and implementation. There is déjà vu regarding the ‘Education Emergency Encounters’ in Pakistan; what will be different this time around? Education is a wicked problem, compounded by a runaway population growth rate: 7 million babies are born annually. It is the biggest elephant in the room. The Ed-Pop debacle is a ‘losing battle’ needing an irreversible national action plan. Education can never be a single-sector performer; its transformation needs strong ‘multi-sectoralism’ for sustainable nation-building and survival.
The combined national education budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 has risen from a meager 1.5% (2023-24) to 1.9%. The commitment is to raise GDP allocations to 4% by 2029. Will this happen uniformly? Will there be budget trackers for citizens to witness the increased taxes on the salaried class translating into visible improvements in public education? Will the Rs25 billion fund for out-of-school children (OOSC) and foundational learning translate into accountable actions? These questions need capable managers steering implementation with precision.
In 40 years of enduring service as an apprentice, researcher, policy influencer, and service delivery partner, it is rare to see a senior bureaucrat visiting schools daily and on holidays, overseeing transformative excellence in public sector schools that outshine private sector counterparts. Motivated secretaries, combining vision, learning, evidence, application, and responsibility for scalable service delivery through systems and design thinking, are needed.
One has witnessed many secretaries making a few school visits and then giving up, overwhelmed by the scale of the malaise in large public sector systems. But the top civil servant at MoFE&PT is different. He is a visionary invested in partnerships, teams, and delivery science. Building boldly on foundational learning reforms initiated by a capable predecessor, he is walking the talk of possibilities from a systems perspective. He is open to ideas that work from neighboring countries, engaging in visible modeling for bold social and economic development in Pakistan. We are witnessing provincial counterparts burning the midnight oil for scalable comprehensive education reforms, to fast-track evidence-backed implementation with fiscal space to accelerate actions for access, quality, and equity!
What do reforms at scale, speed, and breadth mean in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT)? Scale involves 432 schools/colleges of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), with 250,000 enrolments; 402 Basic Education Centres (BECs), NCHD and National Education Foundation schools; and 287 TVET/NVTCC units. Reforms are yet to address 1,200 private sector schools and madaris registered in ICT. Spurring reforms at a dizzying pace since March 2024, the MoFE&PT has been implementing reforms with accountable public information on a daily basis. This includes:
a) an enabling and conducive learning environment with welcoming classrooms dedicated to teaching-learning, ECCE in safe holistic rooms, science and state-of-the-art computer/tech, entrepreneurship labs, libraries with open shelf books mobilized by the National Book Foundation, health and mother and child rooms, revamped sports facilities indoor and outdoor, along with free sportswear for students;
b) waiving the requirement for birth registration/bay forms for school enrolment (birth registration is under 50% in Pakistan);
c) merit-based teacher recruitment and continuous workforce development, including tech-based certification;
d) devolved powers to school leaders for recruitment and budget utilization for school-based reforms/innovations;
e) leadership training and acknowledgment of high-performing teachers;
f) health/school meals nutrition for improved Body Mass Index (BMI), offsetting stunting for learning outcomes;
g) pink buses for transporting girls from rural to urban high schools/colleges in ICT;
h) schools in second shifts to admit OOSC/transgenders and upgrade post-primary enrolment;
i) assessment reforms from summative to formative and hybrid;
j) TEVT/technical vocational programs through NAVTCC and in high schools;
k) institutional-program public-private partnerships (public/private/development partners) mobilized for foundational learning; reading hour/libraries; STEAM, EdTech/AI; climate change, mental health, career counseling; ECCE; inclusion/dyslexia; teacher training; play-based learning/parenting and learning festivals/book fairs; l) a two-week Summer Fiesta during summer vacation with a range of soft and hard skills, including vocational livelihood programmes for primary, middle, and secondary students through crowd-sourced partnerships; m) mobilizing the Federal Board of Secondary & Intermediate Education (FBISE) to lead science and maths Olympiads and sports according to their mandate, etc.
MoFE&PT has all its affiliate bodies running in high gear, providing timely data on core indicators and learning by the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) and the newly established Pakistan Foundational Learning (PFL) Hub. Many initiatives have been demonstrated through mobilization of initial investment from private investors as ‘show and tell’ to the conservative public sector financial bosses for costing the models and proof of concept for outcomes-based financing of public goods. This approach is mobilizing resources creatively with fungibility in public finance. Imaginative financing is a long-overdue public sector reform.
A delivery unit has been established under the Secretary at MoFE&PT to track and steer targeted implementation. ICT may become a unit of high learning outcomes; it may well be Pakistan’s Sobral as senior education leaders from Pakistan witnessed in Brazil (2022). In ICT, the Prime Minister, the Minister, and the Secretary of Education, partner ministries, experts, and citizens are working together to show what works for education and learning.
Will the reforms at scale and speed in ICT be adopted as a model by the provinces? Can scale be managed through local decentralized units with distributed leadership in 400 schools (+/-) for high performance? Will the challenge of reaching the last-mile students with disabilities, minority groups, displaced persons, and transgenders be achieved at the systems level? Can we achieve targets for 25 A and SDG 4, extending entitlements with capabilities? Finally, will the extreme challenge of reversing population growth rates be included in the PM’s directives for the Education Emergency to achieve sustainable human development in Pakistan?
Article published in the Express Tribune on 21st July 2024.
