Educational requirements of Pakistan: A normed planning approach

Abstract

The study assesses the performance of a developing economy’s educational sector by comparing some fundamental educational statistics from Pakistan to those of ten better performing nations, and it outlines the required levels of education for the following decade. It presents a road map for the educational sector in Pakistan for the next ten years after identifying the gap between the existing and required levels of educational statistics. For each level of education, projections for the following variables are created. The required levels of Gross enrolment ratios, student-teacher ratios, the number of enrolments and the number of teachers. The required distribution of government spending across educational levels. Normed Planning approach is followed for the purpose by using panel data of 10 selected countries over the time period 2003-2017. It has also been observed that enrolments at each level of education are far below the required level based on international norms. In primary and secondary education, there are significant disparities between actual and necessary student-teacher ratios. In Pakistan, educational funding appears to be unbalanced, with primary and secondary education receiving more public funds than tertiary education. The analysis also demonstrates that the percentage of capital spending in total government expenditure on education is lower than what is required.

Keywords

• educational requirements
• road map for educational sector of pakistan
• comparison with selected countries
• normed planning