|
Simulations for Equity in Education (SEE) Balochistan Model
Tackling Inequity and School Exclusion in Balochistan –
Situation Analysis and Scenarios with Pro-equity school interventions
|
Contents
1 Introduction......................................................................................................................... 2
2 Overview of key bottlenecks in Balochistan........................................................................... 3
2.1 Context: population and literacy rates............................................................................ 3
2.2 Preschool – Katchi class – access..................................................................................... 3
2.3 Primary – grades 1-5 -- access......................................................................................... 3
2.4 Primary school learning outcomes.................................................................................. 5
2.5 Inequity in access to primary education.......................................................................... 5
2.6 School facilities.............................................................................................................. 6
2.7 Availability and quality of Katchi classrooms.................................................................... 7
2.8 Teachers....................................................................................................................... 7
2.9 Materials for learning..................................................................................................... 8
2.10 Education beyond primary – secondary access.............................................................. 9
2.11 Education Budget in Balochistan................................................................................. 10
2.12 Conclusions and Recommendations............................................................................ 10
3 Simulations for Equity in Education in Balochistan................................................................ 11
3.1 About the SEE model.................................................................................................... 11
3.2 SEE project in Balochistan............................................................................................. 13
3.3 Balochistan ECE Center scenario................................................................................... 14
3.4 SEE Model BUILD URBAN AND RURAL NEW PRIMARY FORMAL
SCHOOLS SCENARIO........ 15
3.5 Balochistan quality focus scenario................................................................................. 17
3.6 Build New Formal classroom in Rural and Urban Area.................................................... 19
3.7 Conclusion and summary.............................................................................................. 20
Simulations for
Equity in Education (SEE) Balochistan Model
Tackling Inequity and School Exclusion in Balochistan – Situation Analysis
and Scenarios with Pro-equity school interventions
1
Introduction
Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan, consisting of 44%
of the total area of Pakistan while accommodating only 6% of total population
of the country. The province is an arid and mountainous region situated to the
west of the country and borders Afghanistan (to the North) and Iran (to the
West). The population is highly scattered with very poor communication and
infrastructure (UNESCO, 2011).
Therefore the provision of social services in Balochistan faces
the particular challenges of a low-density area with its population dispersed
over a large and mountainous land area.
These challenges are very different compared to provision of services in
a high population-density area.
Education service delivery is one case in point. Despite this particular
demography, most policies continue to evaluate school ‘feasibility’ as if low
population density were not an issue, and determine the placement of new
schools in terms of ‘population available within a radius’. This leaves many
settlements outside the ‘feasible’ range.
This practice, combined with other factors, and the absence of a
‘Balochistan specific model’ for education service delivery, has left the
province behind the rest of the country in educational attainments.
The overall education system in the province is characterized by
poor quality, limited access and lack of qualified human resources,
particularly female teachers. Gender inequality across many measures is the
most pronounced in Pakistan.
The situation of Balochistan has been extensively analyzed in for
example, “The Education for All Plan Balochistan 2011-2015” (Government of
Balochistan, 2011); the “Balochistan Education Sector Plan 2013-2018”
(Government of Balcohistan, 2013); “Policy Analysis of Education in Balochistan”
(UNESCO, 2011), and this report will not delve into the detail of those earlier
publications and plans. Here, we
highlight some of the key bottlenecks relating to access and quality, which we
will address with scenarios using the SEE model.
In order to effectively identify and address the underlying causes
of the education challenges facing Balochistan a detailed desk based review of
education in Pakistan with a focus on Balochistan was conducted. The major data
sources consulted for the analysis comprises of the Balochistan Education
Management Information System (BEMIS), the National EMIS (NEMIS), an
Out-of-school Children study, independent reports and surveys by national level
research institutes and position papers developed by various academics. The
analysis aimed to draw upon the existing data and information to identify major
bottlenecks and barriers related to access and quality and propose strategies
to monitor and address indicators related to certain bottlenecks.
The following section 2 provides and overview of the key
bottlenecks and section 3 provides the scenarios.
2
Overview of key bottlenecks in Balochistan
2.1
Context: population and literacy rates
The total population of the province of Balochistan is 12.6
million, which constitutes approximately 6 % of the total population of
Pakistan. The province is home to
approximately 1.14 million primary aged (5-9 years old) children.
According to the 2013-14 Economic Survey of Pakistan, Balochistan
lags behind all other provinces in terms of the literacy rate, which is 44 per
cent (and only 37 per cent in rural areas) as compared to 62 per cent in
Punjab, 60 per cent Sindh and 52 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The GPI of the
literacy rate (10 years & above) in Balochistan is only 0.27, significantly
lower than Punjab (0.76), Sindh (0.65) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (0.49).
The youth literacy rate (age 15-24) is 71 percent for young men
and 33 percent for women, providing a GPI of 0.42. This is considerably better than the overall
literacy GPI of 0.27, which means that the education gender gaps, while still
enormous, have gotten smaller over time.
2.2
Preschool – Katchi class – access.
Pre-primary education in Balochistan is aimed at 3 and 4 year olds
and is integrated into the primary school system. Thanks to this integration, Pakistan
therefore has a relatively high preschool enrolment rate relative to the overall
level of the education system, and Balochistan does as well. The pre-primary population in the province is
approximately 504,000 (boys: 267,000, girls: 237,000). According to the NEMIS report (Govt of
Pakistan, 2015), there were 287,000 children enrolled in the Katchi class in
Balochistan in 2013-14; of whom 178 were boys and 109 were girls. This means the pre-primary GER was 57
percent, with a very significant gender gap in favor of boys (GER 67 percent)
compared to girls (GER 46 percent). The
GPI of .69 is somewhat lower than for the primary grades, suggesting that
parents may have additional reluctance to send very young girls to school, and
illustrating that the gender gaps in education begin at a very young age.
2.3
Primary – grades 1-5 -- access
Given a severe lack of schools (discussed below), around 536,000
of the 1.42 million children of school-going age (Primary level is 5-9 years
old) in Balochistan have never attended school, with girls representing the
majority of these – 293,000 never having attended school. A shortage of schools
for girls and non-availability of qualified female teachers (also discussed
below) are key reasons behind poor levels of enrolment, retention and learning
in the province. Parents and local communities do not encourage girls to travel
long distances to attend school in view of security concerns and cultural
stereotypes.
The low level of access to primary in Balochistan is clearly
illustrated by Table 1. Balochistan province, when compared to other
administrative regions of Pakistan, has the lowest GER of all those considered
and has the second lowest GPI for both indicators.
The GER for primary is 66% (boys 75% and girls 56%). The NER for primary level is 53% (boys: 60%,
girls: 45%, AEPAM). Only 50% of school entrants reach the final grade of
primary (G5) in Balochistan; 54% of boy students and 45% of girl students. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) of GER at
primary level is only 0.74 in Balochistan as compared to 1.08 in Islamabad
Capital Territory (ICT), 0.98 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and 0.95 in
Gilgit-Baltistan.
Table 1. Primary GER, and GPIs by provinces and areas,
and sex in Balochistan in 2013-2014
GER in Primary Education
|
GPI
|
|||
Male
|
Female
|
Total
|
||
AJK
|
76%
|
74%
|
75%
|
0.98
|
Balochistan
|
75%
|
56%
|
66%
|
0.74
|
FATA
|
120%
|
62%
|
92%
|
0.51
|
GB
|
87%
|
82%
|
85%
|
0.95
|
ICT
|
89%
|
96%
|
92%
|
1.08
|
KP
|
126%
|
91%
|
109%
|
0.72
|
Punjab
|
95%
|
89%
|
92%
|
0.94
|
Sindh
|
90%
|
72%
|
81%
|
0.80
|
Pakistan
|
97%
|
82%
|
90%
|
0.85
|
Source: Government of Pakistan (2015)
The significant gender gaps in education access and retention at
all levels are in part due to the separate systems of provisions as there are
separate schools for boys and girls, with only female teachers allowed to teach
in the girls’ schools (discussed further below). In Balochistan girls
experience more limited availability schools, lack of basic facilities in
primary, lower secondary and high girls’ schools, longer distances to schools,
shortage of female teachers, socio-cultural restrictions and insufficient
budgetary allocations for female school construction (Government of
Balochistan, 2013).
Over the past few years, the primary NER in the province of
Balochistan has fluctuated. It decreased
from 51% in 2011-12 to 50% in 2012-13 due to the 2013 floods, which badly
affected the eight districts of the province.
However, an increase of 3% in points - 50% to 53% - can be observed from
2012-13 to 2013-14. As compared to rest
of the provinces and regions in the country this change of 3% in one year is
somewhat lower than the best-performing provinces. The highest change has been
observed in FATA where NER increased from 60% in 2011-12 to 74% in 2013-14. In
overall country, NER increased from 68% in 2012-13 to 72% in 2013-14 - an
increase of 4% in points in one year.
Completion of primary schooling remains a major concern in the
province; the survival rate to grade 5 is low at only 50%. However, the GPI of the
survival rate is 0.83, which is relatively high compared with other education
indicators in the province. Finally,
grade repetition is frequent (11% at primary level).
2.4
Primary school learning outcomes
The learning outcomes of school-going age children in terms of
reading Urdu, English or doing basic Mathematics are alarmingly poor and are
among the lowest in the country. The latest ASER data show low levels of
learning among children, when tested on grade 3 curriculum competencies in Urdu,
English and Mathematics. Only 32% read
an Urdu sentence in grade 3; 32% are able to read English words, and only 25%
able to do a subtraction. Similarly low
levels are found among grade 5 children in Balochistan with only 32% able to
read a story in Urdu, 28% able to read a sentence in English and only 24% able
to perform division. In addition significant gender gaps were identified with
boys outperforming girls in: reading at least sentences in Urdu (34% versus
23%); reading at least English words (33% versus 22%); and in being able to do
at least subtraction (29% versus 19%) (SAFED, 2015). These large differences
are not too surprising in light of the significant gender gaps in access to
education.
In English reading, the difference between rural and urban areas
was extremely marked with 60% of children in urban areas able to read sentences
in English compared to only 28% of their peers in rural areas.
2.5
Inequity in access to primary education
Primary level education data displays inequities by household
income and location, in addition to the significant gender gaps discussed above. Table 2 illustrates the interaction between
gender, location and wealth in relation to enrolment in primary education.
Table 2. Primary GER by income, location, and sex in Balochistan in 2010
ALL
|
Urban
|
Rural
|
|||||
Male
|
Female
|
Both
|
Male
|
Female
|
Both
|
||
Balochistan
|
57
|
78
|
66
|
72
|
60
|
44
|
53
|
1st Quintile
|
31
|
63
|
29
|
43
|
37
|
24
|
30
|
2nd Quintile
|
50
|
60
|
41
|
51
|
57
|
40
|
50
|
3rd Quintile
|
60
|
65
|
38
|
52
|
71
|
48
|
61
|
4th Quintile
|
68
|
73
|
66
|
69
|
72
|
60
|
67
|
5th Quintile
|
82
|
88
|
80
|
84
|
77
|
79
|
78
|
Source: MICS, 2010
Across income quintiles, as expected, the educational outcomes are
progressively higher for the wealthier children– GER is only 31 among the
poorest group, compared to 82 among the wealthiest. Reflecting the general trend, GER is higher
for males as compared to females for all income groups except among the wealthiest
rural population (a very small group with lower statistical significance). Generally the gender disparity is higher the
poorer the household. Similarly, the disparity between urban and rural children
is highest among the poorest households and almost disappears for the
wealthiest groups. Structural factors like lack of school availability are a
major reason that the poorest rural children, especially girls, have the lowest
enrolment rates (Government of Balcohistan, 2013) For the children from
relatively wealthy rural households, access to better transport facilities and
the ability to afford private schools may be assisting the achievement of
higher GER levels.
Inequity in education in Balochistan is also illustrated by the
variation in primary GER at the district level.
There appears to be no issue with access to education in the districts
with the highest GERs i.e. in Mastung (104%), Quetta (100%), Qilla Saifulla
(98%). In contrast, in the districts of Dera Bogti, Hemai, and Qilla Abdullah
primary GERs are as low as 29%, 47% and 47% respectively (2012/3 Pakistan
Living Standards Survey).
2.6
School facilities
According to the Policy Planning and Implementation Unit (PPIU) of
the Balochistan Education Department there are about 22,000 settlements in
Balochistan but schools are located in only approximately 10,000 settlements
(in 2013-14, there were a total of 11,209 public and private primary schools).
This means that more than half of rural settlements do not have a school and
most rural schools are located at long distances from one another. Distance is
a significant issue even for those children that do have access to a school
with on average 20% of school going children have to travel more than 30
minutes in order to go to school. The White Paper on Budget 2010-11 reports
that one child in 10 children has to travel more than 1 hour to school. The distance to school and travel time is one
of the key factors that affects regular school attendance and participation.
The availability of primary schools for girls is significantly
worse than it is for boys. Out of the 11,209 primary schools in Balochistan,
7,991 are boys’ primary schools and 2,853 are girls’ primary schools, and only
365 are mixed, all of which are privately run. (Government of Pakistan, 2015).
Primary schools in Balochistan tend to be very small with the vast
majority having only one room (38% of schools) or two rooms (49% of schools).
Table 3. Percentage of primary schools with physical
facilities, by administrative regions, in 2013-2014
|
|
Percentage
of Primary Schools with Sanitation
Facility
|
Percentage of
Primary Schools with Drinking Water
Facility
|
Percentage of
Primary Schools with Boundary Wall
|
|||
Male
|
Female
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
Total
|
|
AJK
|
13%
|
13%
|
22%
|
21%
|
27%
|
23%
|
Balochistan
|
8%
|
7%
|
10%
|
26%
|
70%
|
36%
|
FATA
|
10%
|
23%
|
32%
|
44%
|
88%
|
63%
|
GB
|
23%
|
13%
|
46%
|
48%
|
63%
|
52%
|
ICT
|
58%
|
38%
|
93%
|
96%
|
99%
|
97%
|
KPK
|
43%
|
32%
|
64%
|
64%
|
96%
|
76%
|
Punjab
|
45%
|
47%
|
94%
|
79%
|
95%
|
87%
|
Sindh
|
45%
|
9%
|
47%
|
55%
|
70%
|
57%
|
Pakistan
|
39%
|
25%
|
61%
|
59%
|
87%
|
68%
|
Source: Government of Pakistan (2015: 183, and authors
computations based on pp162-165 )
Availability of
drinking water in Balochistan primary schools is very low: only 10% of schools
have drinking water, with a significant urban-rural differential. Such low levels are not typical for Pakistan;
nationally 61% of schools have drinking water, with 93% in ICT, 94% in Punjab,
and 64% in KPK.
In addition to
these issues, most Balochistan primary schools lack a boundary wall;
playgrounds, and other facilities[AW1] .[DK2] [DK3]
2.7
Availability and quality of Katchi classrooms
The Federal Ministry of Education prepared the first ECE
curriculum in 2003. However it has not taken root in Balochistan as only a
small number of schools have initiated pre-primary ECE (called Releasing
Confidence and Creativity (RCC) based on the national curriculum, with the
assistance of USAID-Agha Khan Foundation (AKF) and later with the support of
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Phase-III
The Balochistan Education Sector Plan outlines three different
approaches to pre‐primary and
ECE: Katchi, Improved Katchi and the modern pre‐primary ECE. The first two are in the public system while modern
pre‐primary ECE tends
to only occur in a limited number of elite private schools. Two critical flaws
exist in the current structures. Firstly there is no clarity on (and acceptance
of) ECE concepts among most education managers, head teachers and community.
Secondly flowing from the first cause schools have no capacity to undertake
pre-primary ECE classes.
Most schools in Balochistan have traditional ‘Katchi’ class as the
pre-primary education outlet. These classes do not follow a prescribed
curriculum however they do tend to involve basic preparatory subjects including
numeracy. The traditional Katchi class is normally run in a multi‐grade teaching system, and receives the least priority. Teachers
are not trained to teach pre‐primary
children. Books prepared by the Balochistan Textbook Board (BTBB) are taught to
children of Katchi class, which is contrary to the design of the National
Curriculum on ECE.
Although Katchi was introduced to more than 900 schools with the
assistance of Agha Khan Foundation, UNICEF and Save the Children UK this
implementation involved separate classes with trained teachers and appropriate
teaching‐learning
material as required by the national ECE curriculum.
2.8
Teachers
There is a shortage of teachers in Balochistan. Of the 20,201
sanctioned teaching posts, only 17,136 are filled, leaving approximately 1 in 7
posts unfilled. The average
teacher/pupil ratio is 1:38, which implies that not all students are able to
receive equal or sufficient attention in a suitable learning environment. This provincial average varies significantly
with some schools having pupil/teacher ratios greater than 50 and others less
than 15. The teacher deficit is particularly strong when it comes to female
teachers for girls' schools. Of the total 17,136 total primary level teachers
only 4,779 are women (28 percent). The ratio of male teachers to male students is
1:28; whereas the ratio of female teachers to female primary students is 1:49.
The lack of female level primary teachers is more pronounced in Balochistan
compared to Punjab (63 percent female teachers) and 40% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (40
percent). This is particularly
troublesome as the vast majority of primary schools in Balochistan are
separated for boys and girls, with girls’ schools having exclusively female
teachers (Government of Pakistan, 2015).
A serious impediment to availability of quality teachers is poor
pre‐service
training. The current qualification required for recruitment as primary or
middle teachers is considered to be of low quality. Secondly the process of
teaching within pre‐service
institutions is also considered to be of a low standard. At the primary level
the required teachers’ qualification is matriculation with ‘Primary Teaching
Certificate (PTC)’. At the middle level it is the Certificate in Teaching (CT).
Both PTC and CT are nine month long courses with little emphasis on practical
training. The poor quality of the PTC and CT was highlighted in the National
Education Policy 2009, which requires that all teachers be graduates with at
least a bachelor’s degree of Education (B.Ed) by 2018. It does, however,
provide a margin to ‘less developed areas’ to allow a ‘Diploma in Education’ as
an intermediate arrangement. Most of the teachers in Balochistan have the basic
PTC degree as demonstrated in the table below. Only 1,890 teachers have a B. Ed
of which 669 are female teachers.
Table 4. Number of teachers by qualification and sex,
in BEMIS 2013-2014
Male
|
Female
|
Total
|
|
Untrained
|
11
|
22
|
33
|
Other
professional qualification
|
31
|
5
|
36
|
PTC/CT
|
10,977
|
4,021
|
14,998
|
Bachelors
Ed
|
1,221
|
669
|
1,890
|
Masters
Ed.
|
117
|
62
|
179
|
Source: Government of Pakistan (2015)
Most primary schools in Balochistan are very small with more than
half being single teacher schools. Thus multi-grade teaching is practiced in
the majority of primary schools (Balochistan sector plan). In and of itself,
multi-grade teaching has not been shown to be detrimental to learning, provided
teachers adapt their teaching methodology and learners have access to
sufficient learning materials (Little, 2004). However teachers have not been
trained in multi-grade teaching as all inputs assume a ‘normal’ school. This
impedes the teaching learning process in the classroom.
Teacher absenteeism is common and is often due to the long
distances they must travel to school, sometimes as much as 20 to 30 km and low
levels of teacher accountability due to corruption and nepotism (UNESCO, 2011).
This has a direct and negative impact on the likelihood of schools remaining
functional, especially girls’ schools due to difficulties in attracting and
retaining female teachers. In Balochistan 10% of the 2,778 public girls’
primary schools and 5% of the 7,807 public boys’ primary schools are
non-functional (Government of Balochistan, 2015)
The poor infrastructure and lack of qualified teachers has an
understandable negative impact on the quality of learning within schools.
2.9
Materials for learning
Textbooks in Balochistan are considered of poor quality with
limited relevance to the local context and unsuitable language. As with most
qualitative inputs, standards for textbooks have never been developed beyond
rudimentary input based issues like paper quality etc. At present no feedback
mechanism exists to ensure quality and relevance to the child’s level
Government of Balochistan (2013). The current reforms, outlined in the
Balochistan Education Sector plan provide an opportunity to demarcate the
processes for review and approval, to be undertaken respectively by the
Balochistan Text Book (BTBB) and Bauru
of Curriculum (BOC), as distinct functions that require separate terms of
reference, while (more critically) improve the quality of textbooks themselves.
2.10
Education beyond primary – secondary and
post-secondary access
Lower secondary comprises grades 6-8. The population for the age
group for lower secondary in Balochistan is estimated to be 635,000 (boys:
339,000 girls: 296,000). Only 74% of the students who complete primary grade 5
succeed in transiting from Primary to Lower Secondary with again a significant
gender gap in favor of boys (boys: 87% girls: 67%). However, 87% of students
(86% boys, 90% girls) who enter grade 6 reach Grade 8.
Upper secondary comprises grades 9 and 10. The population of upper
secondary age Balochistan is estimated to be 427,000. 89% of students
successfully transition from the last grade of lower secondary to upper
secondary which is similar to the national average but only half of this age
succeed in passing the examination every year. Only 10% drop out of upper
secondary and the repetition rate is 8%.
Comparatively, in Punjab, the transition rate from lower secondary level
is 92% drop out of 8% and a low 1% repetition rate.
The table below outlines the low levels of access to secondary in
Pakistan and in Balochistan in particular. The national GER at secondary level
is 38 percent which implies that the majority of children in Pakistan do not
access secondary education but even this is much higher than the GER of 18
percent in Balochistan. Despite the low overall levels of access there still
exists a significant gender gap with only 63 girls enrolled in secondary school
in Balochistan for every 100 boys. ICT reports by far the highest level of
access to secondary education with a GER of 69.4% whereas Punjab is the closest
to having gender parity at 0.92.
Table 5. Secondary GER, and GPIs by provinces and
areas, and sex in Balochistan in 2013-2014
Male
|
Female
|
Total
|
GPI
|
|
AJK
|
47.3%
|
39.9%
|
43.7%
|
0.84
|
Balochistan
|
21.6%
|
13.7%
|
17.9%
|
0.63
|
FATA
|
34.0%
|
8.2%
|
21.6%
|
0.24
|
GB*
|
49.7%
|
42.5%
|
46.3%
|
0.86
|
ICT
|
64.2%
|
75.1%
|
69.4%
|
1.17
|
KP
|
64.5%
|
31.4%
|
48.5%
|
0.49
|
Punjab
|
42.6%
|
39.4%
|
41.0%
|
0.92
|
Sindh
|
30.6%
|
25.5%
|
28.2%
|
0.83
|
Pakistan
|
41.7%
|
33.3%
|
37.6%
|
0.80
|
Source: Government of Pakistan (2015)
The low levels of access to post-primary are in part due to the
low access to and retention within the primary cycle. However, issues exist within post-primary,
which limit transition rates from primary and progression from lower-secondary
to upper-secondary. A major problem is non- availability of the lower secondary
school level education facilities – in
particular for girls. There is only one lower secondary school for every 11
primary schools: with only 961 lower
secondary schools compared to 11,047 primary. Of these 961 schools only 369 are
for girls, compared with 592 for boys. Although the impact of this shortage
appears moderate, as the effective transition rate from primary to lower
secondary is 74 %, one must bear in mind that only 5% of primary school
entrants reach the last grade. This suggests that even if the number of primary
school completers were to increase significantly there would not be sufficient
capacity at lower-secondary school level to accommodate them.
2.11
Education Budget in Balochistan
For the fiscal year 2014-2015 40.7 billion Rupees (approximately
390 million US dollars) was allocated to education. This represents an increase
of 17% in budgetary allocation for the year 2014-215 compared to the allocation
for 2013-2014. The major areas of increase were current salary allocation (24 %
increase) and in the development allocation (16 % increase). Approximately 29%
of education spending is dedicated to ‘Development’ which suggests a commitment
to improving the level of access to, and quality of, the physical
infrastructure. The allocation to
primary education was approximately one quarter of this budget, meaning that
the current expenditure in 2014-15 on primary was approximately 7 billion
rupees. This
is above the starting value computed in the projections below (5.5 billion
rupees). We were not able to resolve
this difference.[AW4] [DK5]
|
|
2014-15
|
2013-14
|
Difference
|
|
|
|
Allocation
|
Allocation
|
Expenditure
|
Allocation
|
A. Current
|
28,937.23
|
24,743.90
|
28,643.83
|
4,193.33
(17%)
|
Salary
|
25,844.82
|
20,801.28
|
25,750.61
|
5,043.54
(24%)
|
Non-Salary
|
3,092.41
|
3,942.62
|
2,893.22
|
-850.21(-22%)
|
B.
Development
|
11,736.44
|
10,154.72
|
5,306.67
|
1,581.72
(16%)
|
Total (A+B)
|
40,673.66
|
34,898.62
|
33,950.50
|
5,775.04
(17%)
|
Source: FABS Reports from PIFRA SAP System.
2.12
Conclusions and Recommendations
The particular challenges to education service delivery posed by
Balochistan’s demographic and geographic conditions have to date not been
overcome. Low levels of learning clearly indicate the limited number of
qualified and trained teacher with grade appropriate competencies and skills to
teach children. Low teacher motivation and low levels of accountability
compound these problems. The low student attendance is attributed to many in
school and out of school factors. For urban areas, security situation and lack
of a school discipline policy appear to be major ones. In rural areas, teacher absenteeism, poor
quality and lack of school facilities are key reasons behind low attendance.
The above analysis suggests that major shifts are required at the
education policy and planning, system and community level if Balochistan is to
meet the challenge of providing quality education for all its children. Some of
the key findings are summed up to formulate possible recommendations that be
explored through the SEE model simulation exercise:
·
The geographic spread of the province poses a key challenge to
school access for children, especially girls. Different models of community
based schools, non-formal education, alternate learning pathways should be
scaled up as a system wide approach to reach out to children in the most remote
geographic locations.
·
Reducing inequalities across genders and various income groups
through interventions on both quantitative and qualitative inputs including
continuous professional development programs for teachers, improved school
facilities and infrastructure and introducing incentive based programs for
girl’s participation.
·
The development and promotion of resource mobilization and
financial efficiency strategies that are low cost and high impact are important
for an effective implementation of Balochistan Education Sector Plan.
·
The improving quality of education at all levels with purpose of
improving learning outcomes for all children at primary level should be a key
priority for the education department through teacher training and
strengthening school based leadership, in particular, training teachers in
multi-grade teaching in small, rural schools.
3
Simulations for
Equity in Education in Balochistan
According
to Balochistan Education Sector Plan (BESP) Balochistan has a large number of
out of school children, high dropout rates, wide gender disparities in
education indicators and poor quality of teaching (and learning) in the
classroom. These challenges require an organized response and the Balochistan Education
Sector Plan (BESP) has been prepared as the instrument to manage the
prioritization, planning, execution, monitoring and review of education
policies and strategies.
The majority of the children not in school,
dropping out early, or not learning suffer from various forms of disadvantage.
In order to achieve education and learning for all, developing countries need
to implement targeted policies to reach out-of-school children and to improve
learning outcomes for those in school. But how is this to be done? Which types
of interventions do impact evaluations indicate are the most promising, how
much do they cost, and what is their likely impact depending on country
circumstances? Moreover, can
interventions targeted at the poor and marginalized also be cost-effective? The Simulations for
Equity in Education (SEE) project aims to provide answers to these questions.
3.1
About the SEE model
The SEE project began in August 2011 and includes
the World Bank and UNICEF compiling a database of evidence on the effectiveness
of interventions that would be key to the model’s workings. The SEE Model is a
collaborative project of UNICEF and the World Bank to identify cost-effective
strategies for reaching children who are excluded from or underserved by
education systems. SEE is intended to help countries identify cost-effective,
pro-equity education strategies, and to serve as a global tool for developing
evidence-based documentation of and advocacy for such strategies. SEE projects
costs of interventions to reach different groups of excluded children and
improvements in school outcomes as a result of these interventions. A database on the effectiveness of education
interventions around the world has also been developed.
The SEE model can be used to compare potential improvements
in school outcomes for different groups of excluded children as a result of
different intervention packages, as well as the costs thereof. SEE uses a
life-cycle approach. This means that school entry, retention, repetition and
learning are all simulated explicitly for different risk groups. The user can
define an intervention package using a list of up to 30 interventions, and can
target the interventions to particular risk groups. The model then computes the
changes in school entry, retention, repetition and learning resulting from the
interventions. The impacts of the interventions are determined by the context
of the country itself as well as inherent effectiveness (found in the
database). It is easy to define multiple intervention packages and compare the
outcomes and costs. The model is built in Excel with an intuitive, accessible
interface and an adaptable structure, so that it may be used in different
countries. SEE can also be adapted for preschool and secondary education.
Figure 1 illustrates how the ‘risk groups’ of marginalized children and the
proposed interventions feed into computations that lead to model output and
results.
The effectiveness of the interventions is a key
driver of how impactful each intervention and scenario is. In this project, the information concerning
the interventions was based on extensive empirical work. On the one hand, evidence for the
effectiveness of interventions was taken from empirical studies compiled in the
UNICEF database of interventions; as well as a number of additional Pakistani
studies, for example on the effects of corporal punishment. On the other hand, the costs for the
interventions were obtained from colleagues at the Balochistan Ministry of
Education.
Figure
1. Diagram of the
structure of the SEE model
SEE represents a significant departure from
traditional education projection methodologies in that
1) It can treat multiple risk groups in the
population separately, and
2) Outcomes are determined by interventions.
The most significant intended use is with the Provincial
Ministry of Education and local development partners in the context of
Balochistan Education Sector Plan
(BESP) is its planning monitoring and implementation. Therefore BESP
interventions are used for the current practice regarding planning in the
education sector.
3.2
SEE project in Balochistan
The Balochistan project began with a workshop in
Quetta on 21 November 2014 which included participants from the Ministry of
Education, UNICEF Balochistan, from the Islamabad Regional Office, and feedback
from an expert group with Daniel Kelly from UNICEF HQ.
In the following 15 months, the regional team from
Quetta and the team from the UNICEF Islamabad Regional Office worked together
to complete a SEE model version with all of the necessary data and information
for Balochistan. The team was supported
at a distance by UNICEF HQ. The
collaboration included various workshops in person, at a distance, and numerous
email exchanges.
The data for
pupils, progression rates, and teachers were obtained from the BEMIS
(Balochistan EMIS system); and the prevalence of barriers within the risk
groups was estimated from the Pakistan 2012 DHS survey. Data on learning outcomes in Quetta and in
rural Balochistan were taken from the 2013 ASER assessment.
The values for intervention effectiveness in the
Balochistan were estimated using the database on the effectiveness of
interventions that includes more than 300 studies. As for any estimate, and in
particular those computed by using other countries’ data, some uncertainty
remains.
Initial results from simulations based on the Balochistan
show that a pro-equity approach to
education can be significantly
more cost-effective than a non-targeted approach.
Three distinct scenarios are described here:
1.
Balochistan ECE Center scenario
2.
Balochistan build urban and rural formal schools scenario
3.
Balochistan quality focus scenario
[DK6] First, for comparison, some of the high
level outcomes of a scenario with no interventions are shown in Figure 2 below. The
model projects a maintaining of the status quo if no interventions are implemented
e.g. an expected primary completion rate of 30% and 40% of Grade 5 students who
can read a story in Urdu.
3.3
Balochistan ECE Center scenario
The BESP has a
three-pronged purpose in the ECE area: increasing acceptance of the concept
within the education sector, institutionalization of ECE policy framework for
sustainability and expansion of ECE beyond the current number of schools. It
also links child health and nutrition to the ECE framework. As detailed above
the BESP outlines three different approaches to pre‐primary
and ECE: Katchi, Improved Katchi and the modern pre‐primary
ECE. The first two are in the public system while modern pre‐primary
ECE tends to only occur in a limited number of elite private schools.
Most schools in
Balochistan have traditional ‘Katchi’ class which do not follow a prescribed
curriculum and are normally run in a multi‐grade teaching
system with teachers who are under-trained. As of 2014, the pre-school gross enrolment
rates – in the Katchi class – were 67 percent for boys and 46 percent for
girls. In total, 287,000 children were enrolled in Katchi classes.
Table 7. Balochistan
ECE scenario
Start year
|
Time to full scale
|
Units of interventions
|
Targeted risk group
|
||||
Urban boys
|
Urban girls
|
Rural boys
|
Rural girls
|
||||
New ECE in existing school
|
2015
|
4
|
200
|
200
|
700
|
700
|
All
|
2015
|
4
|
200
|
200
|
700
|
700
|
||
The model computed
improved ECE attendance following from the expansion of ECE classes in existing
schools and constructing new ECE classes.
Specifically, we assumed that 1800 preschool classrooms would be added
between 2015 and 2020 allowing an additional 104,000 children to attend
preschool by 2020. Thus, the scenario
represents a 33 percent expansion in the course of four years.
As a result of expanded access to ECE , children have enhanced
school-readiness. This makes it more
likely that a child will enter first grade, will remain in school, and will
learn well. The impact estimates for
these changes were taken from a study in Nepal (Save the Children and UNICEF,
2003). Some of the simulated outcomes that
followed from the scenario are shown in Figure 3 below. First, the gross intake rate would increase
from 80 to 87, the survival rate would increase from 47 to 55 percent, and as a
result, the expected primary completion (percent of children who will finish
primary school) would increase from 30 to 39, a 33 percent improvement. Finally,
an additional 7 percent children would be expected to be able to read a story
in Urdu grade 5 (improving from 40 to 47 percent). An important caveat to these positive
outcomes is that, even if classrooms are constructed, there is limited
capacity to implement ECE in rural areas because of the limited availability of
qualified teachers.
The
costs of this scenario are shown in Figure 4. The base cost of the scenario (regular
provision of schools at the baseline level of resources) increase from 5.5 billion
Rs in 2015 to an average of 6.3 billion Rs. average from 2015-25. The costs of providing the additional Katchi
classes is an average of 2.1 billion Rs.[DK8]
3.4
SEE Model build urban and rural formal schools
scenario
According to the
BESP low access of children to school emerges as the biggest challenge in the
province. The province faces a unique situation in Pakistan as a large number
of settlements (approximately 10,000 out of a total of 22,000) are without
schools. The situation has resulted from a number of factors, which include
poor communication infrastructure. More relevant, in case of education, has
been the criterion for establishment of schools wherein a certain population
density in a given radius permits setting up a school. In Balochistan, an area
that covers 44% of Pakistan and contains only 5% of the population, a large
number of smaller settlements fail to qualify for a school.
In the scenario
for school construction, 4,000 new schools would be built. Of these, 650 will boys’ schools in urban
areas, and 700 urban girls’ schools. The
main push will be to increase access in the rural areas in particular for rural
girls, by building an additional 1950 girls’ schools and 700 boys’
schools. These will provide access in some
of the 12,000 settlements presently without schools. These schools would need to be situated in
such a way as to minimize the distance children from the un-served settlements
need to walk to go to school. The
scenario also includes the addition of new teachers and new textbooks for the
students. The urban schools are assumed to
accommodate on average 86 students and the rural schools on average 49
students, matching the size of urban and rural schools today.
Table 8. Assumptions
for the build urban and rural new primary schools scenario
Start year
|
Time to
full scale
|
Units of
interventions
|
Targeted
risk group
|
||||
Urban boys
|
Urban girls
|
Rural boys
|
Rural girls
|
||||
Build formal urban schools
|
2015
|
4
|
650
|
700
|
All
|
||
Build formal rural schools
|
2015
|
4
|
700
|
1950
|
All
|
||
Recruitment and professional
Development of Education staff for new schools
|
2015
|
4
|
1300
|
1400
|
1400
|
3900
|
All
|
Textbooks
|
2015
|
4
|
55900
|
60200
|
34300
|
95550
|
All
|
The model
computes that as a result of the interventions and additional 330,000 urban boys
and girls will enter schools, and in the rural areas, an additional 306,000 boys
and girls – most of them girls (240,000) will enter schools. As a result of the higher entry rates, an
additional 140,000 rural boys and girls and 308,000 urban boys and girls are
expected to complete primary school over
the projection period
up to 2024[DK9] . The total
number of primary pupils will increase from 756,000 in 2014 to 922,000 in 2018. Figure 4 shows a
summary of the results from this scenario.
Overall, gross intake rate in the province would rise from 80 to 93 –
becoming nearly universal. However,
because little is done to improve retention in schools, survival remains low at
just under 50 percent, and the expected primary completion increases only from
30 to 37 percent by 2018.[DK10]
The
costs of this scenario are higher than the ECD scenario – namely average base
costs of 6.7 billion rupees (higher than with the ECD because of the additional
pupils) and the construction costs plus the additional teachers and books add
an average of 6.4 billion rupees, of which the construction costs are 1.7
billion rupees, but the additional teacher costs are also high – 1.3 billion
rupees.[DK11]
3.5
Balochistan quality focus scenario
According to the
BESP strategies for quality improvements have to be built around inputs,
processes and outputs of the various quality related factors. These include
teachers, curriculum, textbooks, examinations, school environment and school
language policy. The main, common strategy, across all has been
standardization, and benchmarking, of the outputs required, the processes used
and also the inputs. Social settings in schools replicate the hierarchical
nature of social and family life in the community. A coercive approach to
discipline discourages questions and corporal punishment is often used. The
resultant fear invoked in the children compromises their ability to learn,
damages their personality development and creates risks of possible sexual
abuse. The last mentioned often remains unreported due to social pressures. Use
of corporal punishment and discouragement of inquiry in schools, which function
in hierarchies with the student being at the lowest rung. Missing facilities in
schools and buildings that do not cater to weather conditions further dampen
the child’s enthusiasm.
Table 9 shows the
assumptions for the enhanced quality scenario.
Five different strategies were implemented: ongoing in-service teacher
training and support; improved and additional textbooks; mother-tongue
instruction (in the early grades, switching to Urdu and/or English gradually if
desired); reduction of corporal punishment in the classrooms; and training
teachers in multi-grade teaching.
Start year
|
Time to
full scale
|
Units of
interventions
|
Targeted
risk group
|
||||
Urban boys
|
Urban girls
|
Rural boys
|
Rural girls
|
||||
Ongoing in-service teacher
training and support
|
2015
|
4
|
4000
|
3000
|
11500
|
6500
|
All
|
Textbooks
|
2015
|
4
|
170000
|
140000
|
300000
|
160000
|
All
|
Mother-tongue instruction
|
2015
|
4
|
20000
|
16000
|
200000
|
150000
|
All
|
Reduce corporal punishment in
classrooms
|
2015
|
4
|
3500
|
2500
|
12000
|
8000
|
All
|
Train teachers in multi-grade
teaching
|
2015
|
4
|
5000
|
3000
|
All
|
||
A summary of
the results is shown in Figure 6. In this scenario, the model computed that the
proportion of children expected to be able to read a story in Urdu by grade 5 would
improve from 40 percent in 2014 to 67 percent by 2020[DK12] . The survival rates also
increase from 47 to 60 percent and as a result the expected primary completion
rate would reach 39 percent by 2020, even though this scenario does not assume
any increases in access to new schools.
Figure 7 shows the rise
in learning over time, and a notable convergence of learning levels between
urban and rural areas. This
convergence, as well as the marked improvement in the learning levels, is one
of the remarkable outcomes of this scenario. Equity is greatly increased as
overall learning levels are improved.
All of the interventions in the scenario contribute to the
outcome, as demonstrated in Figure 8, which shows
how many additional children attain literacy in Urdu due to each of the interventions separately. In-service training and mother-tongue
instruction (for initial reading and numeracy in early grades) have the
greatest impact; followed by reducing corporal punishment and training in
multi-grade classrooms. Finally, just
providing books has the least impact, but, this intervention is necessary in
any case as a catalyst for the benefits of having better teachers.
Not shown in a separate graph are the impacts
of the interventions on the survival rates.
Mother tongue instruction has also been shown in other locations to
improve school survival rates, as has the reduction of corporal punishment. In
the implementation of the scenario, it is estimated based on best available
sources that mother tongue instruction increases the survival rate by 14% and
Additional children expected to complete primary rises by 10%.
The average base costs from 2014-24 in this scenario are 6.4
billion rupees – and the additional costs of the interventions are 0.820
billion rupees, making this the least expensive scenario of the three discussed
so far.[DK13]
3.6
Conclusion and summary
This
section discussed three, very different scenarios to increase access and
learning: ECD to lay the foundation for learning; adding more classrooms and
teachers to increase access; and interventions to improve learning in the
classroom. Clearly, all of these
directions are important and ideally, there will be fiscal space to implement
all of them.
Figure 10 shows the
total costs of five scenarios: including
the base no interventions and a combined scenario of the three presented above.
With no interventions, business as usual, the necessary budget (including a 5
percent inflation rate) is 65 billion Rupees.
With the addition of ECD classrooms that would reach most children, the
budget increases to 69 billion rupees or, six percent above the baseline budget;
the additional classrooms and teachers bring the 11-year budget to 74 billion
rupees, 14 percent above the baseline; and the improved quality scenario costs
70 billion rupees, eight percent above the baseline. Although the absolute costs of the
improvements are large, the relative
increases in the budget are small and hopefully, manageable.
The figure also shows a COMBINED SCENARIO in which all three
scenarios are brought together. This
scenario has a budget of 81 billion rupees over 10 years, or 25 percent more
than the baseline budget.
Figure 10.Compared five scenarios Unit costs (per student) for
Balochistan SEE Modal
The number of additional
children who would complete primary school in each scenario is illustrated in
Figure 11 below: 170,000 additional primary completers over the projection
period in the ECD scenario and 202,000 in the quality scenario – both through
lower dropout rates. The biggest
increase in the number of completers however, comes from expanding access with
the new schools – an additional 448,000 children over the 10-year period. In the Combined scenario, an additional 1.010
million children would finish primary school in the 10-year period.
Figure 11. Additional
number of children who will complete primary school through the interventions.
The additional number of
children who would reach literacy in Urdu in grade 5 in each scenario are
presented in Figure 12 below. In the ECD scenario it is expected that an
additional 160,000 children would be able to read a story in Urdu in Grade 5 – because of lower dropout and improved learning; 301,000 additional
children would reach literacy in Urdu in grade 5 with improved access because
more children start school; and an additional 466,000 over the 10 year period
with the quality improvements. With the
combined scenario, more than a million additional children would become
literate over the projection period. [DK14]
Figure 12. Additional
number of children who will reach literacy in Urdu by grade 5.
It is hoped that the Government
of Balochistan will be able to implement all three intervention packages in the
combined scenario, to reap the full benefits.
In any case, the three scenarios presented here will enlighten the
course of the policy discussion leading up to these decisions, allowing the
policy makers to make informed decisions well-aware of the benefits, the
trade-offs and the costs of making improvements to the education prospects of
the children of Balochistan.
Sources:
Government of
Balochistan (2011) Education for All Plan Balochistan 2011-2015
Government of
Balcohistan (2013) Balochistan Education Sector Plan 2013-2018
Government of
Pakistan (2009) National Education Policy
Government of
Pakistan (2014a) Pakistan Economic Survey 2013-14
Government of
Pakistan (2014b) Pakistan Education for All Review Report 2015
Government of
Pakistan (2015) Pakistan Education Statistics 2013-14
Little, A.
(2004) Learning and Teaching in Multigrade Settings. Paper prepared for the
UNESCO 2005 EFA Monitoring Report
South Asia
Forum for Education Development (SAFED) (2015) Annual Status of Education
Report ASER-Pakistan 2014
UNESCO (2011)
Policy Analysis of Education in Balochistan
Save the
Children and UNICEF. 2003. “What's the
Difference? An ECD Impact Study from Nepal”.
Report. Accessed from http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Nepal_2003_ECD_Impact_Studty.pdf, April 2016
[AW1]Daniel, I checked this table against the Govt of Pakistan
report. There are contradictions within
the report, e.g. if you just take the table on p 183 with schools with
sanitation facility as opposed to calculating it from more detailed tables, so
what I did is mention which pages provided the data.
[AW4]Daniel, you can levae this in or take it out. It is a comment I added because I could not
find the numbers to resolve this issue.
[DK7]Are these two distinct interventions? Can they be renamed and one or
two sentences added to clarify the interventions. The current names are not
immediately comprehensible.
I have proposed changed names based on
Figure 4 below however the scenario table currently suggests that 3600 schools
classrooms are added which is inconsistent with the text.
[DK8]As the projections only go as far as 2018 can costs for the
interventions be presented until that time? Can they be presented by
intervention?
[DK9]Is the projection period to 2024 or 2018? Can the same year be used
for the figure and the text?
[DK10]Babette can we add a note somewhere to explain why expected primary
completion does not equal entry x survival rate?
[DK11]Are these costs also calculated until 2024? Can more detailed be
provided on the cost of the individual elements e.g. rural school, urban
school, staff, textbooks?
[DK12]Can a sentence be added explaining why a different end year for the
projections was used in this scenario?
[DK14]This suggests some sort of synergy impact, i.e. the interventions
have a larger impact when combined. Can some lines be added on this?
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