The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary & Secondary Education Department, with the support of DFID, has announced the results of the District Performance Scorecard (DPS) and District Incentive Programme (DIP) for the month of December 2018. The event was held at the Directorate of Elementary and Secondary Education Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Secretary Education Ajmal Khan, Director ESED Dr Hafiz Ibrahim, and all District Education Officers attended the event.
E&SE Department introduced District Performance Scorecards (DPS), previously known as District Performance Evaluation System (DPES) in October 2017, with the aim to improve the performance of District Education Offices through better governance and data utilization. Data for DPS is obtained from multiple sources such as BISE, IMU, PITE, SQMI, OAMIS, EMIS Cell, and District Education Offices. Based on the districts' progress in DPS for the period of August-December 2018, the top five districts were provided with cash incentives and certificates of appreciation for improving service delivery in education.
On the other hand, districts at the bottom of the rankings would be penalized through deductions, transfers, and other admissible penalties according to E&D rules. ESRU holds the responsibility to improve the system and notify all concerned stakeholders. For the first time, incentives worth Rs 10 million have been allocated under District Incentive Programme to reward the best performing districts. The first bi-annual disbursement, worth Rs 5 million, has been processed in the month of January and the second one is scheduled for June 2019.
For the disbursement of cash incentives, the districts' Deputy Commissioner, who is the chairman of the committee, will approve the district budgets and all financial transactions to make the process more transparent and accountable. According to the district ranking results aggregated for the months of August-December 2018, D I Khan stands first by securing 61.92% marks, followed by Tank with 61.52%, Haripur with 59.15%, Peshawar with 58.92% and Abbottabad with 58.12%. In addition, other districts also improved their scores from last month such as Torghar by 15 points, Swabi by 13 and Chitral and Shangla by 9 points.
Overall there has been considerable improvement noted in the various key education indicators. For instance, student enrolment in Peshawar and D I Khan increased by 17,000 and 15,000 respectively. Students' and teachers' attendance rate has significantly increased in district Tank by 9% and 8% and in Hangu by 8% and 5% respectively.
Peshawar achieved its target to provide basic facilities in 93% schools. District Shangla, Torghar, Hangu and Haripur have 90% and above participation rate in the induction programme for newly appointed teachers. 16 districts have achieved their targets to open their non-functional schools. Lakki performed exceptionally by making 11 non-functional schools functional.
"Our main aim is to bring back more children to schools by providing them with the best education environment and to improve the overall student learning outcomes. We have started this process to improve the performance of District Education Offices through improved governance and data utilization. The reward and penalty mechanism will encourage competition, which will further promote inter-district learning to accelerate performance. We will focus on lowest performing districts and will make sure their performance is improved," Dr Hafiz Ibrahim, Director E&SE said. "These Key Performance Indicators will help in accountability of District Education staff," he added.