More than 25 million children in Pakistan remain outside the formal education system, over two years after the government declared a National Education Emergency. This persists despite constitutional guarantees of free and compulsory education and repeated policy commitments at both federal and provincial levels.
A detailed policy review by the Civil Services Academy (CSA) finds that Pakistan’s education crisis is now less about policy formulation and more about poor implementation. Weak governance frameworks, fragmented administrative systems, insufficient funding, inadequate data integration, and stark provincial disparities continue to hinder progress under Article 25-A of the Constitution.
The report highlights that although all provinces have developed comprehensive roadmaps under the National Education Action Plan (NEAP) 2026, a growing gap between planning and execution means policy ambitions have failed to translate into tangible educational access for millions of children. It warns that without fundamental reforms in governance, accountability, and financing, the National Education Emergency risks remaining a symbolic gesture rather than an effective response.
Drawing on data from the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), the report traces the crisis back to decades of systemic neglect. Rapid population growth, entrenched poverty, weak institutional capacity, and chronically low public investment in education have compounded over time, steadily increasing the number of children excluded from schooling. From the 1990s to the 2010s, the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) was responsible for tracking out-of-school children, yet millions remained unaccounted for as state infrastructure failed to keep up with demographic pressures. This gap allowed low-cost private schooling to expand but did not address underlying access inequalities.
The CSA review, produced by five Policy Analysis Groups within the Pakistan Administrative Service Campus, evaluates education systems across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, Islamabad Capital Territory, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. It assesses these regions against criteria such as effectiveness, equity, efficiency, ethical governance, and feasibility. The study estimates that between 25.1 million and 26 million school-aged children are currently out of school, making Pakistan the country with the second-largest out-of-school population globally, based on UNICEF assessments.
In a significant development, the National Education Emergency declared on May 8, 2024, brought unprecedented political focus to the issue but failed to bridge the fundamental gap between provincial realities and centralized policy responses. The report stresses that each province faces unique structural challenges, requiring tailored interventions rather than uniform solutions.
Punjab carries the heaviest educational burden in absolute numbers, with between 9.6 million and 10.4 million children out of school. The Punjab School Education Department’s 2026 baseline report indicates that 6.4 million children have never enrolled, while 3.16 million dropped out after initial enrollment, underscoring that retention has become as critical as access. Despite progress in digital monitoring, governance reforms, and public-private partnerships, disparities remain stark. Rural Punjab records a 24% out-of-school rate compared to 14% in urban areas. South Punjab is the most deprived area, with Rajanpur reporting 48% out-of-school children, followed by Dera Ghazi Khan at 46% and Muzaffargarh at 45%. The province requires approximately 35,000 additional classrooms at middle and secondary levels. Meanwhile, poverty, child labor, and economic pressures continue to push children out of education.
Sindh’s education crisis differs structurally, characterized not by initial access failure but by a breakdown in continuity beyond primary school. The province has around 7.4 million out-of-school children, including 4.1 million girls, representing 44% of its school-age population. Despite over 36,000 primary schools, Sindh operates only 2,634 middle schools and 1,674 secondary schools, creating a severe bottleneck that results in nearly 54% of children leaving education after primary completion. Floods in 2022 and 2024 damaged nearly half of public schools, worsening existing deficits. Poverty, child labor, and entrenched feudal and patriarchal structures continue to disproportionately affect girls’ education.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounts for about 4.9 million out-of-school children, roughly 19% of the national total. The report attributes this to challenging terrain, security issues, administrative fragmentation, and severe shortages of female teachers, especially in merged districts. In areas such as Upper Kohistan, Torghar, and Bajaur, the absence of girls’ schools and female teachers remains a major obstacle, with conservative social norms further limiting female enrollment where schools are staffed predominantly by male teachers.
Balochistan is described as the most structurally disadvantaged province. Although the out-of-school rate reportedly declined from 69% in 2023 to 45% in 2025, significant infrastructural gaps remain. Children often travel up to 30 kilometers for primary education and as far as 360 kilometers for secondary schooling, making regular attendance impractical in many districts. Of the 15,270 schools, 3,617 are non-functional or ghost institutions. Among operational schools, 79% lack electricity, 56% lack sanitation, and 49% lack boundary walls. Girls constitute 78% of out-of-school children in the province.
The report also challenges assumptions of relative educational stability in federal territories. In Islamabad Capital Territory, urban enrollment stands at 85%, but rural areas drop to 62%, with over 60 informal settlements excluded from formal education planning. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Diamer district reports 42% out-of-school children, while in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, nearly half of children drop out before completing primary education. Maternal illiteracy and remote geography are identified as key factors in these areas.
Despite provincial differences, the report highlights a common structural constraint: extremely low public investment in education. Sindh allocates nearly 90% of its education budget to salaries and administrative expenses, leaving minimal funds for development, while Balochistan spends 81% on salaries. Punjab, however, has announced a Rs100 billion package for school improvements, alongside expanded outsourcing and partnership-based schooling models. Pakistan’s overall education expenditure remains well below international benchmarks, reinforcing concerns that financial commitments have not kept pace with demographic realities or constitutional obligations.
The CSA review concludes that Pakistan’s education crisis is now defined less by a lack of understanding and more by repeated failures to implement known solutions. It recommends a structural overhaul of education governance, starting with the creation of a unified National Student Registry linked to Nadra’s B-Form system. This would enable real-time tracking of enrollment, attendance, and dropout patterns across provinces. The absence of a reliable national database has allowed millions of children to remain invisible to the system, with provinces relying on outdated census data or fragmented records that fail to capture migration, informal settlements, and dropout dynamics.
