Pakistan

The Girls' Education Challenge (GEC) had two 'Leave No Girl Behind' projects working in Pakistan, which improved the learning opportunities and outcomes for over 40,500 of the country's most marginalised girls. Access to good quality education will give these girls the chance of a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. 

The GEC was launched in 2012 and is the largest donor-funded global girls’ education programme. Through their strong focus on improving literacy, numeracy and life skills, GEC projects are supporting girls to seek out and secure their full potential. Projects supported under the Leave No Girl Behind initiative aim to reach highly-marginalised girls and will support essential interventions to provide literacy and numeracy and skills relevant for life and work.

GEC projects are implementing a diverse range of interventions in a variety of different contexts. They are financing access to education, providing materials for learning and creating safe spaces to learn. They are working with governments, communities and schools to raise standards and to build support for girls’ education. They are training and mentoring teachers and governors to improve the quality of teaching and the effectiveness of school governance. And they are working directly with girls to raise their aspirations and achievements, and enable them to transition from primary education to secondary education, or technical or vocational education and training or employment. The projects are forming partnerships with provincial education authorities, foundations, civil society and NGOs to turn around the lives of marginalised girls through education and build the evidence for how girls can most effectively attain a quality education.

The GEC implements a rigorous approach to monitoring and evaluation. All projects must demonstrate the additional impact they are making on girls’ learning outcomes, using robust statistical approaches. This is generating a substantial source of qualitative and quantitative evidence on successful strategies for girls to learn and thrive at school. 

"The areas of Pakistan in which the GEC projects will operate are subject to extreme poverty and parents can find it difficult to meet education-related costs for their children."

Girls' education in Pakistan 

In Pakistan, the delivery of education is led by provinces. In recent years, access to basic education and gender equality has improved. There have also been improvements in both public and private school provision in under-served urban and rural areas, meritocratic teacher recruitment and professional development, and a strong results-based approach to measure and improve learning outcomes.  

Challenges remain however. Approximately 39% of the population live in poverty. One in 11 children die before their fifth birthday and 14,000 women die in childbirth every year.  Despite considerable recent expansion, 44% of children aged 5-16 are out of school (22.84 milion). More girls are out of school – 49% of girls compared to 40% of boys. The most populous province, Punjab, 41% of girls are out of school. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the net enrolment rate for girls is only 51%, considerably lower than that for boys (79%). The population is set to rise by 50% in less than 40 years, so investment in girls’ education has been identified as a key strategy to enable the emergence of a more prosperous, stable country. 

In some areas, conservative cultural practices, social norms and conflict mean that safety concerns are acute. Other factors, including gender-based violence, purdah (isolation at home), early marriage, boy-child preference, and the prevalence of boys-only secondary schools all impede the Pakistani girl child to acquire a quality education.  

Projects

Leave No Girl Behind projects

Closing the Gap - completed implementation in May 2023
ACTED Pakistan

ACTED’s Closing the Gap project recognised the multiple barriers to education that the most marginalised girls face in Pakistan. These include, but are not limited to, financial barriers, lack of qualified female teachers, insecurity and acceptance of girls’ education. It also recognised the need for innovative thinking around access to education, such as mobile libraries and home learning, if current and future generations of girls are to realise their full potential. This project supported 5,500 out-of-school girls, aged 10-19 years. It was implemented in Sindh and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) which are two areas of Pakistan with some of the lowest learning outcomes and challenging social environments for girls and women.

TEACH - completed implementation in March 2023
International Rescue Committee (IRC) Pakistan

IRC’s TEACH project supported up to 35,000 out-of-school girls in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. Dependent on age, the girls enrolled in one of two pathways: an Accelerated Learning Programme and transition to formal or non-formal education for younger girls; or a more employment skills-based approach for the older girls. The older girls then transitioned into vocational training, employment or self-employment. The project also addressed harmful social norms and the barriers faced by girls in accessing education with the engagement of girls in all activities at family, community, school and system levels.