The condition of public school systems is often lamented in the media; however, a cursory analysis of officially reported numbers points in a different direction altogether. What explains this difference?
As education is a provincial subject, education department of each province reports its performance differently. In any case, three of the four provinces publish some form of school census reports for government run institutions annually (official figures from Balochistan are hard to come by).
First, a word on quality of reporting. Looking at the last five years of reporting, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa education department has begun to publish the most comprehensive set of data, which goes a step further from district-wise metrics to statistics from Deeni madaris and private school enrolments as well. Timeliness of data from Punjab and KP is also a welcome sign, with reporting from Sindh education department lagging by two years.
Onwards to enrolment. Taking net enrolment figures into account (gross minus dropouts), both Northern provinces manage to show a year-on-year improvement in enrolment, Punjab adding three hundred thousand pupils in the system on average annually and KP adding ninety thousand per year. While the year after year trend between 2012 and 2016 in Sindh is varied, net enrolment in the province has declined during the period. The report fails to offer any explanation for the same.
Figures of teaching staff looks like another positive for our government schools. Student to teacher ratio of averaging 30:1 across the three provinces as well as across different stages of primary, secondary and higher secondary is not only commendable, but also surprising since it seems to be better than the state of affairs in most privately-run schools. There is, of course, no comment on teacher absenteeism by any of the provincial boards.
Student to school ratio seemingly takes the cake. Punjab, with the highest absolute enrolment has 200 students on average per school, whereas ratio continues to improve from KP to Sindh. For KP, the figure comes down to 160 students per school building and in Sindh the number is at 90!
If student to teacher ratio is treated as a proxy for number of students per classroom, government run schools in Sindh appear to have only three grades per school building. On paper, that appears to be a wonderful statistic; however, since government schools are supposed to be organized around primary, secondary, and high school systems, that cannot possibly be in line with facts on ground. Ghost schools, anyone?
The story of net female enrolment and its proportional share up to high school also appears to be in sharp contrast with anecdotal evidence. In Sindh, for example, net enrolment appears to stay put from primary to higher secondary; a figure if true should certainly have been made a part of campaign slogans by the incumbent government.
Punjab claims that net female enrolment has stayed put during the period under review at 48 percent, with female share in high secondary climbing up to 52 percent. Commendable, except the yearly reports share no break up of gender numbers, which had to be calculated backwards.
While the very fact that provincial boards have begun to share statistics on their periodic performance is appreciable. However, the whole exercise becomes moot if numbers are being window dressed to smoothen the trend lines on the graph and meet donor targets. Little information viz. net enrolment as a percentage of school going population is shared either. School census publications are a valuable exercise, but a little more effort please?
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