Five major challenges to girls’ education in Pakistan

Educating girls has a myriad of benefits ranging from greater empowerment and economic opportunities to improved health outcomes and reduced poverty. In Pakistan, school-age children, especially girls, lack quality educational access and attainment.

June 2024

In many countries around the world, children are attending school but not learning enough to read proficiently. In addition, there remain around 250 million children who are missing out on any schooling.1 To spotlight this learning crisis, the World Bank and UNESCO's Institute of Statistics developed a concept called Learning Poverty that brings together schooling and learning indicators by measuring the share of children who haven’t achieved minimum reading proficiency (as measured in schools), adjusted by the proportion of children who are out of school (and are assumed not able to read proficiently). In simpler terms, learning poverty means being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.

77% of children in Pakistan are learning poor, meaning they cannot read or comprehend a simple written text by age 10.
In South Asia, learning poverty is much greater in Pakistan than Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India.
Among low-income countries, Pakistan is in the middle of the pack. Learning poverty rates have climbed in South Asia and Latin American and the Caribbean as a result of longer than average school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Pakistan, learning poverty for boys and girls is roughly the same.

While all children are impacted by poor quality schooling, Pakistani girls, in comparison to boys, are more greatly affected. Girls are less likely to be enrolled in school, less likely to stay in school, and less likely to achieve learning outcomes even if they attend school. Girls from rural areas suffer the worst educational outcomes and are the most susceptible to factors such as poverty and sociocultural beliefs that prevent girls and women in Pakistan from completing their education.

girls illustration

Who is most affected?

Rural girls are the most likely to drop out after primary school.

Pakistan has some of the highest numbers of out-of-school children (OOSC) in the world. Different estimates put the number between 20.3 to 26.2 million children who are not currently attending any kind of school.2 Girls constitute over half of the OOSC population.

Across provinces, girls’ enrollment in primary schools continues to lag behind boys’, especially in KP and Balochistan.

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement 2011–12 to 2019–20.
Punjab has managed to narrow the gap in enrollment by focusing on the issue through greater investment and by leveraging the private sector.
In KP and Sindh, the gap between the enrollment rates of girls and boys has remained largely unchanged over time, irrespective of age or grade level.
Given Sindh’s large population, education improvements in this province would likely lead to national-level improvements.
Moving the needle on girls' enrollment rates will depend on provinces, which could benefit from better coordination and knowledge sharing.

Even if children enroll in and attend school, learning levels remain low. In 2018, ASER revealed that 50% of grade 5 students in Pakistan had not reached grade 2 levels of learning. The same assessment showed that the gender gap in literacy and numeracy is bigger among rural boys and girls than urban boys and girls.

Investing in girls’ education is critical, not only for gender equality, but also to empower girls and enable generational gains in learning and livelihoods. To enroll girls in school and to keep them in school, there needs to be a strategic and multisectoral approach that targets demand and supply to improve enrollment, retention, and completion.

challenge 1 illustration

Challenge 1

Poverty prevents children, especially girls, from going to and staying enrolled in school

Poverty remains a significant barrier to receiving an adequate education, and in Pakistan, the effect of poverty on education begins at the primary school level. Approximately 13% of parents cite the cost of education as one of the main reasons why their children either drop out or do not attend school. Girls from poor families are 52 percentage points less likely to attend school than girls from high-income households.

girls illustration

Poverty is a barrier

Rural girls, who are more likely to be from low-income households, are also less likely to be enrolled than any other group

Differences in enrollment rates are the greatest between poor boys and poor girls

Source: Authors' calculations based on Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2018-2019
Boys from poor families are 28 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in school than boys from wealthy families.
Enrollment for girls from poor families is even worse, they are 52 percentage points less likely to be enrolled than their wealtheir counterparts.
challenge 2 illustration

Challenge 2

An insufficient number of schools for girls, especially at the middle school and secondary levels, has led to lengthy travel time to schools and safety concerns

The insufficient number of schools, especially at the secondary school level, raises concerns about travel time and safety, and it presents a key challenge to school access and enrollment for girls. Roughly 29% of families who live in rural areas reported that school is too far away. Too few schools lead to the need to travel long distances to attend school, which has been shown to significantly impact enrollment and regular attendance, particularly of girls. Girls are also more susceptible to harassment, oftentimes daily, by men encountered on the streets, in and around the school gate, and on the vehicle taking them to school.

Most schools in Pakistan are primary schools, which highlights the lack of middle and secondary schools

Rural Urban

Source: NEMIS-AEPAM (National Education Management Information System and Academy of Educational Planning and Management), “Pakistan Education Statistics 2021-22.” Islamabad: Academy of Education Planning and Management (AEPAM).

challenge 3 illustration

Challenge 3

There is a shortage of qualified teachers, particularly female teachers in rural schools

A shortage of qualified and trained female teachers, especially in rural areas, contributes to girls’ dropout rates. In urban areas, female teachers make up a large percentage of the overall teachers.

In rural areas, except for Punjab, female teachers make up a smaller share of the overall number of teachers.

Rural Urban

Source: NEMIS-AEPAM (National Education Management Information System and Academy of Educational Planning and Management), “Pakistan Education Statistics 2021-22.” Islamabad: Academy of Education Planning and Management (AEPAM).

A legacy of low investment in girls’ education has made it difficult to hire and retain female teachers. There is also a large body of evidence from high-income countries and some low-income countries that show that same-gender teachers, especially for girls, can help underserved students learn better.3

Other problems include teacher absenteeism and overall teacher quality. About 14% of teachers in the public sector are absent from school on any given day. Moreover, many teachers do not have high content knowledge for the subjects they are teaching. In KP, only 60% of teachers could pass a grade 5 mathematics exam, compared with a 40% pass rate among their students.

challenge 4 illustration

Challenge 4

There remain some sociocultural beliefs and household factors that hinder girls from getting an education

Parents have a variety of reasons for why their children are not in school, which differ for boys and girls. For example, parents of boys are 15 percentage points more likely to report that boys are not in school because they "need to earn" money for the family. Some of the reasons families give, e.g. “not interested in studies”, “further education not necessary” might be proxies for a combination of sociocultural beliefs and other social norms, which are difficult to disentangle. More research is needed to better understand how beliefs and norms directly affect school attendance for boys and girls.

Parents’ responses for why their children are out of school

Source: Authors' calculations based on Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2012-2013 and 2017-2018
Parents report that the two main reasons boys are not in school is either to help with income generation or because they are not interested in their studies.
The primary reasons for why girls are not in school are a bit different, with parents citing that school is too far away or that further education is not necessary (especially for older girls).
challenge 5 illustration

Challenge 5

Without quality education available for all children, progress will remain slow

Children in Pakistan will continue to face challenges with enrollment and completion unless the quality of education improves. In responses to household surveys, parents overwhelmingly express direct or indirect concern about the quality of education. Many explicitly state that the “quality of schools” or “education not useful” was a reason for not sending their children. Even if other challenges are addressed, through reducing or eliminating fees, building more schools, or hiring more teachers, if schools do not provide children with the requisite knowledge and skills to improve their futures, families and students will not see the benefits of attending or completing school.

There are no easy solutions to these challenges. To deliver a quality education for all children, policy makers will need to consider a combination of solutions that hinge on increasing education expenditure and efficiency.

Below is a list of possible solutions, which are assessed by a specific group of parameters. These parameters include: (i) the immediate benefit to girls for their educational opportunities; (ii) the cost of the intervention, (iii) the potential impact on girls’ educational returns in the long term; and (iv) how likely the intervention can be scaled to a national or provincial level. For example, incentivizing girls' enrollment has a large immediate benefit to girls (

), but is quite expensive (
), has a more limited impact on educational returns in the long term (
) and is difficult to scale up (
).

Possible solutions and effect on girls’ education

Source: Authors' own table

Note: An * shows the parameter on a scale of 1-3, with 1 being low and 3 being high

For more information on possible solutions to these challenges, please visit: "Breaking Barriers, Improving Futures - Challenges and Solutions for Girls' Education in Pakistan"

References

  1. “UNESCO: 250 Million Children Now out of School | UN News.” United Nations. Accessed May 1, 2024.
  2. PBS (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics). "Pakistan Social And Living Standards Measurement 2018–2019”, Pakistan Education Statistics 2021-22.
  3. Dee, Thomas S. 2005. “A Teacher like Me: Does Race, Ethnicity, or Gender Matter?” The American Economic Review 95 (2): 158–165., Hanushek, Eric A., and Steven G. Rivkin. 2006. “Chapter 18 Teacher Quality.” Handbook of the Economics of Education 2 (2006): 1051–1078., Muralidharan, Karthik, and Ketki Sheth. 2016. “Bridging Education Gender Gaps in Developing Countries: The Role of Female Teachers.” Journal of Human Resources 51 (2): 269–297.

Attribution

Digital story: Barón, Juan D., Lauren Dahlin, and Jessica D. Lee. 2024. Five major challenges to girls’ education in Pakistan. Washington, DC: World Bank

Main report: Barón, Juan D., Mary Bend, Neelam Ejaz, Jessica D. Lee, and Iva Trako. 2024. Breaking Barriers, Improving Futures: Challenges and Solutions for Girls' Education in Pakistan. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Report Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lauren Dahlin, Koen Martijn Geven, Fahad Mirza, Abdal Mufti, and Ahmed Raza for providing us with several data sources. The team gratefully acknowledges all the comments and suggestions from Keiko Inoue, Toby Linden, Cristian Aedo, Maria Qazi, Cristina Panasco, Lire Ersado, Patricia Fernandes, Mirai Marou, Amena Raja, Kimberly Versak, Maria B. Orlando, Uzma Qureshi, Leandro Costa, Raja Bentaouet Kattan, Shobhana Sosale, Seo Yeon Hong, Maryam Akmal, Ariana M. Del Mar Grossi, Sana Isa, Nimra Afzal, Nimra Tariq, Maryem Rahim, José Mola, and Miriam Muller. The team greatly benefited from productive discussions with government officials from provincial education departments and the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. We also thank development partners and the Pakistan Education team, in particular, Maliha Hyder, Izza Farrakh, Shahram Paksima, Elena Roseo, Manal Quota, and Inga Afanasieva. This report was supported by generous funding from the Gates Human Capital Project Multi-Donor Trust Fund.

Disclaimer

This work is a product of the staff of the World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. The boundaries, colors, denominations, links/footnotes, and other information shown in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The citation of works authored by others does not mean the World Bank endorses the views expressed by those authors or the content of their works.

Credits

Digital Story

Juan D. Baron, Lauren Dahlin, Jessica D. Lee

Visuals & Code

Alice Thudt & Dominikus Baur

Interface Design

Alice Thudt (based on print design by Elizabeth Salud)

girls illustration