Re-imagining the political economy of learning | Political Economy

39 % of Pakistan’s 241 million people are illiterate. Despite the slightest benefits, the education sector is critically performing less. The price of human development index with 0.540, the country ranks 164th of 193 countries, identifying a widespread loss of literacy, life expectancy and income.

Pakistan promised Mahatkanakshi goals as the signator of the Dakar Declaration: Universal Primary Education, Gender Equality and Standard Education for all. After a full decade, the promises remain widely incomplete. According to the Economic Survey (2024-25), 38 % of children aged 5-16 are out of school, and almost every matriculation is the way for South Asian colleagues to educational results.

Gender differences and inequality in learning

Girls account for 43 % of the total registration. Their numbers are decreasing in levels: 37 % in primary, middle 20 % and higher secondary in secondary. Completion rates are disappointing: 42 % of girls complete basic education compared to 51 % boys. Literacy is 52.8 % for women, which is 68 % behind for men. It falls into rural areas where an average of 38 % for women compared to more than 60 % for men.

Structural imbalance in public education

Public spending on education has increased by 1.91 % of GDP, which is a minor improvement of last year, but is far less than 4 % of UNESCO recommended. Repeated expenditures dominate this allocation, and maintain a foal operational architecture rather than a category reform. Due to the cost method, the school’s budgets are in favor of pre -existing infrastructure, which reduces girls’ schools.

The boys’ school is one kilometer away from 77 % of the villages. Girls’ schools meet this standard in 69 %. The distance goes and reinforces the dropout.

Buildings, bureaucracy and obstacles

Infrastructure has become a clear barrier: 17 % of primary schools lack suitable buildings. Many people are missing furniture, toilets, blackboards and basic teaching tools. Many parents, especially for their daughters, disobey the school environment.

Teachers, although now pay relatively better compensation, are hamstring through a system that rewards more than substances. Recruitment is suffering, training is complex and does not support closely. The teaching experience is often pious, disconnected and irresistible.

The educational bureaucracy is very high in administration rather than the technical staff, who support teaching, manage standards and examine the results of learning. Most districts lack the ability to monitor teaching coaching or curriculum delivery. A rehabilitation is essential to reducing administrative blot, increasing technical staff and focusing directly on educational support.

A feminine frontline for education

Mothers are in Pakistan’s lowest used assets in the ecosystem of education-existing, busy and permanently investing in the welfare of their children. In rural and Perry Urban areas, parents often travel for work or relatively depart from school concerns, and leave mothers as a children’s rights patron.

The village’s child, teachers in the classroom and the mother at the doorstep should be made in a joint story of learning.

In order to utilize this inactive reservoir of advocacy and assistance, primary schooling should be specifically assigned to female teachers, especially in the area. Female teachers can better engage mothers as partners-not just in educational education, but also in children’s protection, attendance monitoring and community-led support system. Combined with community teachers, mothers can become a strong champion of both education and secure learning environment.

Sensitive shifts related to such gender can lead to confidence and traction. Children, especially girls, are more likely to go to schools where maternity figures have a significant role. It also produces an opinion loop where women advocate for solutions to teachers and mothers, monitor and improve school conditions.

School management committees (SMC) should be resurrected with maternity involvement. Without operational explanation or ownership, more than 90 % SMC is just nominal. Rapid Punjab SMC Policy, 2024, has seen contradictory enforcement. The leadership of women, the rule of root from the community should be the basis for the reform of sustainable.

Instead of increasing the government’s control, the privatization of primary education should be done, especially in lower areas, with strong regulatory monitoring. Public private partnerships, cautiously formed and monitored, can diversify the options, encourage innovation, and relieve the public sector from its inaccessible operational burden.

From access to autonomy

In order to become a strategy for changes, girls’ education has to exceed the registration goals. A safe environment, female teachers, flexible paths and curriculum are important for access to a girl’s education. They should not only participate, but also to include futures, except for the inherited barriers, but also to be promoted.

Models of informal education (NFE) should be recognized by central diagnosis, which can allow backward children, especially girls to obtain certified completion of primary schooling. NFE routes of rural and culturally limited communities, NFE routes should be extended to the highest secondary level, which should offer continuity, reputation and movements to girls who want to overcome obstacles to education.

Curriculum for livelihood, harmony and humanity

The current curriculum is scientifically overloaded and socially and politically screened. At the primary and secondary level, the number of articles must be reduced, preferring more understanding than memory and compatible compared to repetition. Such factors have played a significant role in the mass condemnation of the value of education, which is irrelevant to the possibility of society for most sections of society.

In order to align learning with livelihoods in the future, technical materials and professional skills must be embedded in discipline. Promoting yourself (DIY) can nurture both work, repair, digital literacy and business thinking-both enabled and confidence.

The need for education of life skills is equally important: financial literacy, socialization, hygiene methods, environmental awareness and urban responsibility. They should replace religiously prescription materials, which are better cultivated at the domestic level. Where religious instructions are maintained, it should be appreciated as a civil ethics, which is rooted in human, tolerant behavior and international harmony.

A new political economy of learning

Pakistan’s education crisis is not merely a sectarian problem. It is dubious of a political economy, which is in ideological distress with priorities, institutional design and decentralization. Reforms cannot increase. It must be structural, it begins with the beginning of how we explain education and who is serving.

If Pakistan is to achieve comprehensive development, social stability and democratic flexibility, then education should be considered as a charity but infrastructure. The existing system must be re -concentrated and replaced: privatized at the base, mainly regularly and free from bureaucratic grip.

The village’s child, teachers in the classroom, and the mother should be made in a joint story of learning. A story is not quota and costs, but dignity, sovereignty and desire.

Pakistan’s next decade education is not just a revision but a colonial.

The author is a strategic humanitarian leader and a public scholar who is committed to narrative reforms and social equality (what does he do for a living?)