AJK tops District Education Ranking 2017

ISLAMABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) took the lead in Pakistan District Education Rankings 2017, while Orakzai Agency, area of Federally Administered Tribal Agency (FATA), remained at the lowest ebb.

Pakistan District Education Rankings 2017, a report launched by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Tuesday, ranked Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber, three districts of AJK on top; Shaikhupura, district of Punjab, was placed 4^th, whereas Qila Abdullah, Sujwal, and Orakzai Agency were at the bottom.

The report is the annual iteration for tracking progress and performance of various regions of Pakistan and aims to help understand the state of education in Pakistan, as well as call attention to the evidence of a deep and persistent national crisis.

The report revealed a striking contrast that AJK has been at the bottom in infrastructure with a total score of 28.4, whereas Punjab has been on top with 92.8.

The trends contained in the report reflect that Punjab was dominating at the top positions. Whereas Haripur from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Quetta from Balochistan occupy 9^th and 14^th position respectively; districts from KP & FATA were holding the bottom five positions.

Likewise, the trends in middle school have shown that Punjab is dominating again in infrastructure ranking, but Nagar, a new district of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has been on the top with a full score of 100. Balochistan and AJK are again sharing bottom ranks.

While speaking on the occasion, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, SDPI executive director, said that the purpose of this evidence based research was to identify the areas that were hampering the quality and access to education, as well as the factors that were leading towards the improvement.

He said that we need to explore the factors behind children leaving schools, particularly after completing education at the middle school level. He said that these efforts were aimed at providing insight and directions to policy makers. Besides, the report and the facts it has presented could benefit our political parties that at present, would have been in the process of developing their party manifestos, especially around education policies, he said.

Dr Suleri a further added that the two most important indicators that need attention were retention and improvement in gender parity index to meet Vision 2025 and SDGs, he concluded.

Shafqat Munir, the senior policy advisor at SDPI, informed the audience that the purpose of this research was to present the existing state of infrastructure and access to education for the children across Pakistan. However, the responsibility of improving these indicators lied with the respective governments, as the present state of affairs in the education sector was demanding more budgetary allocations in this important sector.

Junaid Zahid earlier presented district and province wise details of learning and infrastructure and said that despite challenges like data gap that existed at various levels, SDPI has been able to compile the report with utmost authenticity.