The editorial rightly identified the significant support of the British people for education in Pakistan
Your editorial (‘Reshaping education’, July 28) rightly identifies the significant support that the British people, through the Department for International Development, are giving to education in Pakistan. You are right to highlight the 5,000 classrooms we are aiming to build, but that is the tip of an important iceberg — and in fact, our education programme in Pakistan is Britain’s biggest aid programme anywhere in the world.
Your call for more support for education outside of the Punjab region is absolutely right, as is the risk of Punjab pulling ahead of other regions. That is why, in addition to our major programmes in Punjab, the UK works in education across Pakistan and particularly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). We are working in K-P to support the provincial government system to train teachers, to build schools, and to ensure more children are in school, that they are staying longer and learning more. I am particularly proud that thanks to British taxpayers, there are more than 460,000 girls in 23 districts of K-P, who are receiving stipends to help them stay in school for longer so that they can complete their secondary education.
Finally, your newspaper’s interest in education in Pakistan is important and welcomed. Pakistan only spends around 2.2 per cent of its GDP on education, and 12 million children are out of school — the second highest rate in the world. Education is vital to the economic development of Pakistan, and only through interest and support in education in the whole of Pakistan, will we continue to see significant improvements in the education system.
Joanna Reid, CBE
Head, Department for International Development, Pakistan
Published in The Express Tribune, July 31st, 2016.
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