Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) ranks first among eight
Pakistani territories with respect to the provision of quality
education, according to the Pakistan District Education Rankings 2017 released by Alif Ailaan, an education campaign, on Thursday.
AJK
is followed by Islamabad Capital Territory, Punjab and
Gilgit-Baltistan. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) ranks fifth on the list. Sindh
and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have fallen to
seventh and eighth positions, respectively, as Balochistan jumped two
places from last year's rankings to sixth position.
According to Alif Ailaan, the education index covers
retention from primary to middle and middle to high schools, learning
among students and gender parity.
"The 2017 rankings show that while certain parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab have made marked
improvements in school infrastructure, the pace of progress in Sindh, Balochistan and Fata remains a
concern," the report noted.
It also highlighted that "authorities continue to
prioritise school infrastructure at the expense of what happens in
classrooms."
Soon after the report was released,
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan tweeted: "Alif Ailaan
has put out these amazing figures on District Education Rankings for
2017. Nine of the 10 top districts are from KP; only 1 from Punjab. In
same survey for 2016, nine of top 10 were from Punjab; none from KP. A
great achievement by PTI govt in KP in critical field of education."
However, seemingly validating the concern raised by Alif
Ailaan, Khan chose to highlight the "primary school infrastructure
scores" instead of overall education scores. Under the latter measure,
only one KP district, Haripur — which is placed at the top of the
rankings — is among the top 10. Five AJK districts and four districts
from Punjab make up the remaining list.
According to the rankings, Faisalabad is Punjab's best
performing district for the year while Karachi West (ranked 14 in the
country) is the top-ranked district in Sindh.
In
Balochistan, the provincial capital is top-ranked (ranked 45 in
Pakistan) while Awaran is the worst performing district for the year.
Awaran is also ranked at 137 in the country, two places above Sindh's
lowest-ranked district for the metric, Sujawal.
"Strides
to improve primary school infrastructure in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province are demonstrated by the fact that their lowest ranked district
is Shangla at 62," the report highlighted.
Punjab and KP
also dominate the "middle school infrastructure scores", with two top
districts for the metric being Malakand and Swabi, while the next eight
are from Punjab.
The rankings also reveal that a lot of school-going
children are out of schools because of a lack of schools above the
primary level, confirming previous concerns by the campaign on education.
"For
every four primary schools in Pakistan, there is only one school above
primary level. This means that most children who pass Class 5 do not
have schools to continue their education. The large out of school
population of the country is a direct product of this failure."
The
report said that the disparities between districts within a province
reflect the "failure of programming at the provincial level."
In
a stark reminder about the gender gap prevalent in the country, the
report revealed "there are more than 55 districts in Pakistan where the
total number of girls enrolled in high schools is less than one
thousand."
