A three-day workshop on education budget tracking, organised by Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) in collaboration with Institute of Social and Policy Science (ISPS), ended with a note of thanks to the participants by its (PCE) National Coordinator Zehra Arshad.
Participants across the country attended the workshop with an enthusiasm to bring a change as an outcome of this workshop through due process of allocation for public money spending as a budget.
During the workshop, Dr Salman Humayun deliberated issues of policy and budget making process, creating a nexus among education data, policy and budget. Siqqidue Tareen, a renowned trainer, unfolded multiple aspects of budget concentrating more on education budget by addressing all tiers and terminologies for its basic understanding. The participants were made aware of inefficiencies and inappropriateness in allocating a budget.
To ensure its optimum usage, gaps were identified to mitigate challenges and create a surge. The participants identified the indicators resulting in low turnout in public schools and proposed alternatives for the utilisation of allocated budget. It would help empower citizens as a watch group to hold officials and policymakers accountable for proper budgetary allocations.
The PCE is tracking budget through a budget watch group across Pakistan as a regular feature during next couple of years that will enable to have evidence-based data allocation and utilisation of public education budget in Pakistan. The workshop would help to formulate a budget watch group, containing budgetary information, education statistics, information about quarterly releases and analysis on the basis of prior information which resultantly would highlight issues for efficient resource allocation to bring a positive change on sustainable basis.
