Pakistan ranks lowest in South Asia in terms of education spending

December 22, 2022 (MLN): The government is spending around 2.5% of GDP on education which is the lowest among South Asian economies in FY23.

On the contrary, the government needs to spend 5.7% of GDP to increase the quantity and quality of teachers and educational infrastructure in line with the Education 2030 Framework for Action of Sustainable Development Goals, as per the Annual Report published by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on the State of Pakistan’s Economy.

In addition, improvement in the efficiency of education spending is crucial to curtailing expenditure leakages. In this regard, the challenge of ghost schools, high teacher absenteeism, and proxy teachers require special attention.

Moreover, teachers’ salaries are estimated to account for around 70% to 80% of provincial education budgets. In light of this, estimates of 30,000 to 40,000 ghost schools in the country require urgent attention.

Although efforts are being made at the provincial level to minimize the number of absent teachers, considerable efforts are needed to improve teacher management and quality.

According to Labour Force Survey 2021, about 27 million children between the age of 5-15 were illiterate in 2021 whereas around 27mn children between the age of 5-15 were illiterate in 2021.

This weak state of education has become a constraint to the prospects of harnessing the demographic dividend.

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