By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan’s educational sector is marred by corruption, strong gender and regional inequalities and insufficient budget allocations, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
An evaluation report of the bank has noted that the problem has led to social imbalances in the country, Dawn said Sunday.
“Pakistan’s education indicators are poor, even within the context of South Asia. Gender and regional inequalities are strong. Unless the performance trajectory changes markedly, Pakistan probably will not achieve the education MDGs (millennium development goals),” said the report.
The evaluation is based on ADB’s 38-year operations in Pakistan. During the period, the ADB extended $16.3 billion for more than 180 projects in a number of sectors including education, agriculture, energy, finance, law and economic management and communications sectors.
Its own performance in only two sectors – transport and law and economic management – was found to be efficient. In the rest of the sectors, the outcome was partly successful or unsuccessful.
“Although many reasons are given for the weak performance of education sector, insufficient budget allocation and ineffective use of the resources are the main factors. Leakage through corruption is almost certainly an important factor,” said the bank.
“As the public education system has failed to deliver the results parents want, private schools have expanded in response to strong demand.”
In overall terms, the success rate of education sector projects in Pakistan is 29 percent, although this rate improved to 50 percent for projects approved in the 1990s.
The ADB’s own assessment put the education sector projects at “partly successful” on a four-category scale of highly successful, successful, partly successful and unsuccessful.