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simulation in education



Shaikof Baloch and Ehsan Ullah
shaigle@gmail.com and eullah@unicef.org

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.

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 preprimary and ECE: Katchi, Improved Katchi and the modern preprimary ECE. The first two are in the public system while modern preprimary 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 multigrade teaching system, and receives the least priority. Teachers are not trained to teach preprimary 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 teachinglearning 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 preservice 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 preservice 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] 
  Table 6:  Balochistan Education Budget at a Glance, 2014-15 at Glance ( RS Million)[i]



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.
Figure 2.  Selected results in Balochistan with no scenario interventions

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 preprimary and ECE: Katchi, Improved Katchi and the modern preprimary ECE. The first two are in the public system while modern preprimary 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 multigrade 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
All[DK7] 

                 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.
                              
Figure 3. New ECE classrooms summary chart  


















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] 

Figure 4.  Costs of ECE scenario

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] 
Figure 5. Summary results from the scenario to build additional schools.


 











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. 
Table 9.  Enhance quality scenario

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 6.  Summary of the improved quality scenario
 















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.
Figure 7.  Detailed results on learning outcomes in the quality scenario. 

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.
Figure 8.  Relative contribution from each of the interventions in the quality scenario: number of additional children who attain the literacy in Urdu by grade 5 due to each intervention
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%.


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.


 [DK2]I will update this text once the figures have been compared.


 [DK3]That makes sense. Thanks


 [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.


 [DK5]I am happy to leave it in. I think it is better to be explicit about any inconsistencies.


 [DK6]This is not discussed


 [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?


 [DK13]Can the cost for the period being simulated be inclued in the text?


 [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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