The Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) held a one day national level consultation with education experts from all over Pakistan on Tuesday.
The experts gave a set of recommendations to improve the education budget, governance and quality of and access to education, as well as gender equity. These recommendations would be shared with all relevant national and global policy fora.
The experts said that with the aftermath of the national elections and the approach of the 2013 budget, Pakistan faces several issues as far as its education agenda is concerned. Not only is the deadline of the Education for All goals (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaching but the insertion of Article 25 as a fundamental right still lacks implementation and Pakistan cannot achieve the EFA and MDGs by 2015.
Pakistan has 12.9 million children out of school at primary and lower secondary levels, which is the second highest in the world. At the current rate of progress, children would be able to realise their real RTE in 2041 in Punjab, 2049 in Sindh, 2064 in KPK and 2100 in Balochistan.
Experts held that Pakistan badly needed to alter its education agenda and the formation of the new government was an excellent platform for this. In order to avert the education crisis, an agenda based on four different pillars was required: access and quality, governance and financing, gender equality, and public/private partnership.
They felt that the government should proritise the drafting of short, medium and long term strategies to overcome the education crisis, which was the root cause of major challenges.
