Twice this year, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared an education emergency. He drew attention to Pakistan's education crisis of having 26 million out-of-school children. Yet both times, the reaction on ground to tackle this emergency remained invisible.
Ironically, the academic year of 2024 was repeatedly disrupted across the country due to various reasons including governmental decisions as well as both political and weather events. In Punjab, school-going children were only able to attend classes for 118 days, out of the 262 days of the academic calendar.
In Sindh, the annual academic session was reduced to a semester due to the poor strategy adopted by the Department of Education, while board exams faced delays. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the education sector still struggles to survive under the threat of terrorism and insurgency, teacher absenteeism and ghost schools.
Too many holidays for Punjab
In the new academic year 2024, which began on April 1, the Punjab government declared Saturday as a holiday, which meant that classes were held in government schools for only five days a week.
Following this, a week-long holiday was announced in schools due to heatwaves in May, causing schools to remain closed from May 25 to May 31. The summer holidays then took place from June 1 to August 14, resulting in a total of 75 days where educational activities could not be held in schools.
Later, in September, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) called for a protest, which led to a deterioration in the law and order situation, causing roads to schools to be blocked and educational activities to be suspended for five days. At the close of the year, the smog set in and educational institutions were given holidays for 13 days after the air quality index alarmingly exceeded 1000.
On September 17, when the PTI called for a rally, schools were closed for four days due to road closures.
Schools were also closed again from November 7 to November 19, with the government imposing a ‘green lockdown’ due to smog. Additionally, schools remained closed on Muharram, Independence Day, and other gazetted holidays.
Holidays were also given to schools in Lahore and other districts due to the PTI's protest call on November 24, resulting in schools being closed for more than five days due to road closures and the law and order situation. Now, due to cold weather, smog, and fog in Lahore, holidays have been declared in schools from December 23, 2024 to January 10, 2024.
All these factors have contributed to a record number of holidays in the academic session in Punjab, making it challenging to complete the curriculum.
Officials of the Punjab Education Department informed The Express Tribune that students of classes 9 and 10 are being taught the remaining syllabus under a special ‘zero-period arrangement’, so that they can be prepared to sit for board papers. Furthermore, weekend classes are being held in many schools on Saturdays to make up for the lost time. However, in contrast to this situation, the Education Department has not made any comprehensive plan to teach the complete syllabus to students during the academic year.
No books or schools for KP
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where millions of children are out of school, the performance of public schools remains questionable. Despite the PTI government ruling the province for two decades with a focus on education and health as their primary agenda, the state of education — especially for girls in the newly merged tribal districts — is alarmingly poor.
On the one hand, terrorism has significantly damaged the education sector, and on the other, issues like teacher absenteeism and a lack of textbooks have disrupted the academic year. Political conflicts and the provincial government's unfulfilled promises to teachers have also led to strikes, further disrupting the education system and wasting academic sessions for students.
In regions such as Kurram Agency, North and South Waziristan, and other merged districts, security operations and deteriorating law and order have caused severe setbacks to the education sector. Furthermore, delays in the printing and distribution of textbooks at the start of the academic year in government schools have hampered the students’ progress.
Shahnawaz Khan, an education expert, told The Express Tribune that every government claims they will ensure education for every child, but the reality remains grim, with millions of children still out of school. He highlighted that although the government and the education department spend millions of rupees annually to enroll every child in school, no new schools have been constructed in recent years. Instead, many schools destroyed by floods and terrorism remain in ruins to this day.
He urged the government and education department to ensure that the new academic session is managed effectively. “For God’s sake, do not play with the future of our children any further,” he pleaded.
Grim stagnation in Balochistan
Despite lofty promises, no significant progress was made in improving education indicators in Balochistan during 2024, leaving more than three million children out of school, most of whom are girls, according to Provincial Education Minister Rahila Hamid Khan Durrani.
This grim reality highlights the province’s failure to address educational disparities. Education Department sources revealed that girls’ dropout rates remain significantly higher than boys’, primarily due to inadequate facilities, tribal and social taboos, and poverty.
A glaring example of neglect is the absence of basic amenities in schools. “Around 1,700 girls’ schools lack washroom facilities, making it extremely difficult for female students to continue their education,” said a senior official. The absence of such basic necessities has forced many girls to abandon school, exacerbating the already alarming literacy gap.
Balochistan’s struggle with education is not new. While Article 25-A of Pakistan’s Constitution mandates free and compulsory education for all children aged five to 16, implementation remains weak. The government declared an emergency to enforce this provision, but the ground realities paint a starkly different picture.
A critical issue plaguing the education system is the prevalence of ghost teachers — those drawing salaries without fulfilling their duties. At the same time, many existing teachers lack adequate training, further weakening the sector.
To counter this, the government has initiated a recruitment drive, hiring thousands of teachers on a contract basis to fill vacancies in marginalised and remote areas. “This process is ongoing and aims to address the acute shortage of qualified teachers,” an official stated. However, the initiative has yet to show tangible results.
The lack of credible surveys to assess the actual number of out-of-school children further compounds the problem. While national reports suggest high dropout rates across the country, Balochistan’s specific challenges remain under-documented.
In the absence of meaningful reforms, the education crisis in Balochistan continues to deepen, particularly for girls. Without addressing basic infrastructure needs, tribal barriers, and teacher shortages, the province risks further entrenching educational inequalities, undermining the future of its children.
This alarming state of affairs underscores the urgent need for comprehensive planning and effective implementation to ensure that every child, regardless of gender, has access to quality education in Balochistan.
Strategic missteps in Sindh
The session of the academic year 2024/25 was converted into a semester due to poor strategy and lack of planning by the Education Department in Sindh. This is the only session in which teaching was able to continue for barely six and a half months after which students will take exams. The matriculation and intermediate students will sit for their annual exams based on a reduced syllabus because the current session was officially cut down to three and a half months.
The current session 2024/25 started from August 15, after having been delayed by four months due to the unavailability of textbooks. Reportedly, the current session was to begin on April 15, but the caretaker government at that time realised that textbooks were not ready and the Sindh Textbook Board would not be able to meet this target so soon. Hence, the caretaker government, citing the election process and the construction of polling stations in schools, shifted the start of the session from April 15 to August 1.
When August 1 rolled around, the current government noted that textbooks were still not ready in Sindh and the session will have to be pushed forward by another 15 days. A notification in July announced the start the session for government and private schools would be August 15 instead of August 1. However, private educational institutions rarely use the government curriculum except for classes 9 and 10.
In Sindh, the first semester of the second year classes in government colleges have further delayed due to a prolonged admission phase and three separate merit list being issued. The first year of intermediate classes in colleges could barely start in September.
When the steering committee meeting was called on November 28 to decide the next academic calendar after this situation, it was decided to start the next academic session 2025/26 from April 15 and at the same time start the matriculation exams from March 15 and the intermediate exams from April 15.
This meant that the current session would be limited to six and a half to seven months in total. Therefore, it was decided to conduct the matriculation and inter exams with a syllabus reduced by 25 percent.
The School Education Department issued a reduced syllabus at the matriculation and inter levels on December 16, which stated that educational institutions should complete half the syllabus before the winter vacations while only 50 percent of the remaining syllabus would be taught. According to the Directorate of Curriculum Assessment and Research, a subsidiary of the Sindh Education Department, the exams will be conducted for a reduced syllabus in all faculties of matriculation and intermediate.
These decisions mean that millions of students of class 10 in Sindh will go to colleges without learning important topics of their subjects while students of second year intermediate schoolw will similarly study a short syllabus and participate in the aptitude tests, including MBBS, of various universities, where these tests will be conducted based on the full syllabus.
Education in Pakistan is handicapped with neverending challenges and increasingly the impact of climate change is closing schools as seen in the floods in Sindh that damaged over 1,300 schools and completely destroyed 228 of them.
The rest of the country, too, faces extreme weather conditions, including heatwaves and smog which lead to closure of schools. However, to make matters worse is a government whose confused and lackadaisical attitude towards the very foundation of learning (number of days schools are in session, completion of syllabus, availability of textbooks) is stunting the intellectual growth of our children. The education departments at federal and provincial level must be shaken from their stupor of neglect and be spurred to action if we are to help our children catch up with the rest of the world.