School education: North-south contrast in Punjab stark

Select south Punjab districts fare worst

LAHORE: The Punjab remained behind Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in the fourth iteration of the Pakistan District Education Ranking 2016.

The document, released on Tuesday, was put together by Alif Ailaan and the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. The report covered 151 districts to collate education scores extracted from data on enrolment, retention, learning, gender parity levels and school facilities.

While six of the province’s districts secured a place in the nation’s top ten, south Punjab remained one of the most backward regions of the country recording a dismal performance across all indicators. The six top districts from the province were Chakwal (2), Gujrat (4), Sialkot (5), Rawalpindi (6), Attock (7) and Jhelum (9). Punjab districts that made it to the bottom half of the rankings are situated in the south. Of these, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan fared the worst. Nevertheless, the report noted that the aforementioned districts had improved their standing vis-a-vis last year.

The document attributed the decline in Rawalpindi’s rankings—from one in 2015 to six in 2016—to a decline in the district’s enrolment score. Chakwal’s position—first in 2014—remained unchanged over the following two years at second place. The report stated that the Punjab had scored highest in gender parity. This, the document stated, indicated equal opportunities across the sector. The report revealed that while the Punjab had experienced a decline in retention, a modest improvement had been recorded in learning.

The Punjab also fared poorly when it came to middle school rankings with no district situated in the province making it to the top ten. While Faisalabad—the top Punjab district in the category—came in at 12, Rawalpindi dropped from 7 to 41.

The document revealed that the province had dominated the school infrastructure category with all top 22 districts at the primary level being situated in the province. Dera Ghazi Khan—at 53—was the only Punjab district to have not made it to the top 50 in the category. The report stated that while the Punjab had recorded an improvement when it came to learning outcomes—an indicator it had put up a poor show in earlier rankings—south Punjab continued to lag behind the rest of the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2016.