ISLAMABAD/KARACHI – The World Bank has approved an assistance of $400 million to help Pakistan improve access, quality, and relevance of education at all levels.
A news release issued by the bank said $300 million equivalent credit for the tertiary education support project would finance the government’s tertiary education development programme, and would leverage an estimated investment of approximately $1.7 billion in additional resources from the government.
The Punjab and Sindh would be provided additional financing of $50 million each for the education reforms to attract more children to school by providing free textbooks, stipends to secondary school girls, and subsidies to low cost private schools.
The government’s programme seeks to address current weaknesses in tertiary education such as low and inequitable access, income and regional disparities, poor quality and relevance of programmes, research performance, and weak governance.
The project would support the implementation of the government’s medium term development programme for tertiary education aimed at mitigating these weaknesses, while ensuring fiscal sustainability and effectiveness of expenditure in the tertiary education sector.
The projects are designed to improve conditions for teaching, learning, and research for enhanced access, quality and relevance at the tertiary level across the country while continuing to increase enrolment rates and reduce gender and rural-urban disparities in primary education in Punjab and Sindh.
World Bank Country Director Rachid Benmessaoud said in a statement that Pakistan’s transition to a middle-income country in the global knowledge economy of the 21st century would depend critically on the country’s intellectual and human capital.
“To achieve this objective, Pakistan needs to upscale its entire education system so it can produce skilled, innovative and enterprising graduates, as well as research and innovation capacity, capable of promoting dynamic economic development,” he said.
In primary education, Pakistan has made significant gains in education in the past decade with net national primary school enrolment jumping 14 percentage points, from 42 to 56 percent between 2001 and 2007. Punjab has seen a 17 percentage point increase while enrolment in Sindh has increased by 10 percentage points.
Despite these improvements, young Pakistanis are still the least likely school attendants in all South Asia with wide boy-girl and rural-urban disparities. The additional financing for the Punjab Education Sector Project ($50 million) will continue to build upon both projects’ success through attracting more children to school by providing free textbooks, stipends to secondary school girls, and subsidies to low cost private schools.
Whereas, the additional financing for the Sindh Education Sector Reform Project ($50million) targets improvements in service delivery and system performance by supporting the government’s efforts in three areas: (1) preparation of school-specific non-salary budgets; (2) teacher rationalisation across schools and the allocation of teaching posts to schools; and (3) expansion of district education management reforms.
