ISLAMABAD – Pakistan continues to confront serious challenges in education financing and learning outcomes, according to a government report released on Thursday.
The report highlights a rising number of out-of-school children and severe learning deficiencies, noting that 77 percent of ten-year-old children in the country are unable to read and understand a simple text. It stresses the need to better align education spending with priorities such as teacher quality, learning materials, and assessment systems.
The findings are included in a 171-page report titled Public Financing in Education 2025-26, issued by the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), an attached department of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.
Covering the period from 2019–20 to 2023–24, the report examines education financing trends along with issues related to provincial funding, learning outcomes, and shortages in special education.
It states that Pakistan’s education spending remains significantly below international standards. Over the past five years, expenditure on education has stayed below 2 percent of GDP, compared with the UNESCO-recommended benchmark of 4 to 6 percent under the Education 2030 Framework for Action.
The report records fluctuations in spending levels: 1.9 percent of GDP in 2019–20, 1.4 percent in 2020–21, 1.7 percent in 2021–22, and 1.5 percent in 2022–23. For 2024–25, provisional estimates suggest a further decline to 0.8 percent based on available data from July 2024 to March 2025.
It describes the declining trend as a serious concern, stating that the gap between actual allocations and recommended benchmarks reflects insufficient prioritisation of education in public spending.
On learning outcomes, the report says Pakistan continues to face a critical education crisis, with 25.37 million children currently out of school. It also refers to assessment results indicating widespread deficiencies in basic literacy and numeracy skills.
The report links these issues to multiple factors, including the impact of the 2022 floods, which damaged thousands of schools and disrupted education for millions of students.
Regarding fiscal arrangements, it notes that resource distribution between the federation and provinces continues under the Seventh National Finance Commission Award of 2009, which is still in effect.
At the provincial level, Balochistan does not have a notified Provincial Finance Commission award, while other provinces have also not updated their frameworks in recent years, resulting in ad hoc arrangements for intra-provincial transfers.
Although total education spending increased between 2019–20 and 2023–24—rising by 50 to 140 percent across provinces—the report states that in real terms, after adjusting for inflation, allocations have largely stagnated or declined in most provinces, except Balochistan.
