Education in Pakistan: What Works & Why

Over the past two years, a diverse group of concerned educators in Pakistan has attempted to highlight the issues of quality education by studying some of the better schools and school systems catering to low-income groups. The central assumptions in this study, titled Education in Pakistan: What Works & Why, were:

• that it was possible to find good schools in almost all districts of Pakistan;
• that these schools existed in both public and private sectors;
• that it was possible to learn what worked and why from such schools.

An important aspect of the study was a shift in emphasis from an overwhelming number of doomsday descriptions for education in Pakistan toward a search for the positive that would connect with possibilities of reform. In addition to this, the study aims to help inform policymaking by providing actionable recommendations.

Open Society sponsored this collaborative project between the Education Support Program and a coalition of Pakistani NGOs and other organizations. Education in Pakistan: What Works & Why is published by the Society for the Advancement of Education.