Pakistan’s constitution promises free, compulsory education to every child between five and 16. But nearly eight decades after independence, that promise remains largely unkept. The Economic Survey 2025-26 puts the national literacy rate for people aged 10 and above at 63 percent, up from 61 percent, and says 28 percent of school-age children are out of school.
That is an improvement on the previous figure, but it still means roughly one child in three or four is outside the system. Estimates of the total vary: a government study cites 25.37 million out-of-school children, while another official body released a figure of 26.2 million. Either way, Pakistan has the second-largest out-of-school population in the world.
According to the Economic Survey 2025-26, pre-primary enrolment dropped by 9.9 percent. But being in school does not guarantee learning. A government study found that 77 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text. Dropout compounds the problem. The primary completion rate is just 57 percent, so many children who enrol leave before they have mastered the basics. Poverty, child labour, early marriage and long distances to school push them out, and girls are hit hardest. One survey found 34 percent of girls out of school, compared with 22 percent of boys.
The root of the problem is money. Reports on the latest Economic Survey say education spending has fallen to 0.8 percent of GDP, with expenditure down 23 percent to Rs962 billion and Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recording sharp cuts. In 2024 the government said it aimed to raise education spending to 4 percent of GDP by 2029. The trend is moving in the opposite direction. Pakistan spends far less on classrooms than on debt servicing and defence, and what it does spend is mostly absorbed by salaries, leaving little for buildings, books, laboratories or teacher training.
Even the money that is allocated often fails to reach children. Pakistan’s education departments have long been associated with “ghost schools”, which exist on paper and draw budgets and salaries but have no pupils, no teachers, or no building. Ghost teachers collect pay without teaching. Postings and transfers are widely seen as being decided by political connections and bribes rather than merit. When a recruitment drive is announced, jobs are too often sold or handed out as favours. A corrupt administration cannot be expected to deliver quality education, and each leaking rupee is a child left behind.
The teachers who do reach the classroom are frequently under-prepared. Many enter the profession with little pedagogical training, receive little support afterwards, and are routinely pulled away from teaching for election, census, polio and dengue duties. Rote learning remains the norm, and children pass through grade after grade without acquiring basic literacy and numeracy.
Pakistan has produced education policies in abundance but sustained none. Each government announces a new plan, a new curriculum or a new slogan, and the next one abandons it. Since the 18th Amendment made education a provincial subject, the federal government sets targets while provinces control the budgets and the schools. The result is a patchwork with no consistent national direction and little accountability.
The country runs several parallel education systems. Elite private schools offer English-medium instruction, trained staff and decent facilities, while low-fee private schools and overstretched public schools serve the majority, often with crumbling buildings, missing toilets and overcrowded classes. A child’s school largely determines their future opportunities, which entrenches inequality across generations.
Provincial gaps are equally stark. Punjab records the highest literacy rate at 68 percent, followed by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 58 percent each, while Balochistan is lowest at 49 percent. In Balochistan, 45 percent of school-age children are not enrolled, despite a sharp improvement from 69 percent two years earlier. A child’s life chances still depend heavily on the province and district of birth.
Punjab has responded with the country’s most ambitious experiment: handing the management of government schools to private operators. The department has completed outsourcing of 13,600 schools in three phases and has now approved a fourth phase of 6,460 schools, including 600 high schools for the first time, while also deciding to close schools with enrolment of up to 100 students.
The government says the system is working. Officials told the chief minister that outsourcing increased enrolment by 1.3 million in 16 months. Earlier research on contracting out schools in Punjab supports part of that case: one study estimated that enrolment in converted schools rose by over 60 percent.
But critics are unconvinced. Teachers’ unions argue that nearly 700,000 children left school after outsourcing and that the number of institutions fell from 52,000 to 38,000. They also fear regular teachers will be declared surplus and replaced by cheaper contract staff. Independent scrutiny is thin. One commentary notes that the programme has expanded to thirteen thousand institutions before results were independently established on learning rather than attendance. Until the evidence covers what children actually learn, and what happens to children in closed schools, the verdict on privatisation must remain open.
What is the way forward? First, Pakistan must treat the budget promise as binding. Reaching 4 percent of GDP is the minimum, with spending protected from cuts and tied to measurable results. Second, the system needs a clean-up. Biometric attendance for teachers, a verified school census, public disclosure of school-level data and independent audits would expose ghost schools and ghost salaries. Recruitment and transfers must be merit-based and transparent.
Third, the teaching profession must be rebuilt, with proper pre-service training, continuous mentoring and an end to non-teaching duties. Fourth, provinces need a shared national floor for curriculum, learning assessment and minimum facilities, with extra funding for Balochistan, rural districts and girls’ education, including stipends, safe transport and local schools for girls.
Fifth, reforms such as outsourcing should be judged by independent learning data, not enrollment claims. Whatever the management model, the state must keep its responsibility to guarantee free, quality schooling. Finally, all of this requires continuity. Education reform takes a decade to bear fruit, and it will not survive if every government abandons its predecessor’s work. A cross-party national consensus, backed by the provinces, is the only way to turn a promise on paper into a classroom for every child.