Project Details.

UNESCO worked with provincial and area education departments to improve the quality of primary education and reduce the number of out-of-school children in 19 remote and isolated districts of the country since 2016. The Government of Pakistan was the initial donor for program implementation, joined by other development partners for program expansion. 

The program districts were finalized in consultation with provincial and local governments, communities, civil society organizations, and other local development partners as follows: Balochistan: Districts Jaffarabad and Ziarat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Districts Kohistan, Swat, and Mohmand Punjab: Districts Muzaffargarh and Bahawalpur Sindh: District Tharparkar Azad Jammu and Kashmir: District Hattian, Muzaffarabad, and Neelum Islamabad Capital Territory: Nilore, Tarnol, and Sihala Education Sectors Gilgit-Baltistan: Districts Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, Astore, and Ghanche Working with more than 3000 schools, the program was able to make substantive progress in enrolling out-of-primary school children (OOPSC) in the project districts. 

However, the COVID-19 pandemic, flood-related school closures, and the economic recession have impacted the progress made in the target districts. There was a growing concern that the need to bring families out of economic hardship would result in more children, both boys and girls, entering the unskilled labor market. This was likely to increase the drop-out ratio and could also result in a surge in child labour that is already causing concern in the country. Therefore, to get first-hand data, UNESCO intends to conduct a study on the profiling of out-of-school children in target districts of UNESCO’s presence across the four provinces and areas of the country. B) OBJECTIVE: HIMAT Consulting held meetings with relevant UNESCO staff to understand the expectations and scope of the assignments. 

HIMAT Consulting designed the research methodology and theoretical framework to carry out the study in line with its objectives. HIMAT Consulting conducted a desk review of existing research and survey reports to determine the complexity of out-of-school children in terms of magnitude, inequalities, and multiple disparities. HIMAT Consulting developed a data collection tool (for qualitative and quantitative data) including a questionnaire, focus group discussion guidelines, and methodology in consultation with UNESCO. HIMAT Consulting conducted primary data for the OOPSC (household survey) in the selected districts and tehsils HCPL collected qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the education sector, including teachers, parents, members of school management committees, officials from the education department, private sector education providers, NGOs, and political, religious, and community leaders. 

HIMAT Consulting analyzed the collected data through appropriate procedures and tools and presented the analysis and findings of the data set, signifying the reasons for keeping children out of schools, such as economic, cultural, and social causes (poverty, distance to school, education of parents, culture, child labor, natural calamities, migration, floods, etc.). HIMAT Consulting created profiles of the most important groups of OOPSC, as well as identify and characterize the primary (demand- and supply-side) causes for their exclusion from education. 

HIMAT Consulting developed a district-specific report on OOPSC data, contributing factors, and obstacles. HIMAT Consulting drafted recommendations for equity-based policy formulation and program interventions to deal with OOPSC and improve their access to education.