Pakistan like many other developing countries faces many challenges in improving its education sector. Government realizes the importance and generational impact of education on the lives of people and on the overall economy and has therefore committed to improve the quality of education as well as enhance the educational facilities. Recently, Government has decided to double the education budget in percentage of GDP term as envisaged in Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation (FRDL) Act , 2005. This will mean an extra spending of 1.8 percent of GDP over and above the existing trend during the next 5 years, taking maximum benefit of the fiscal space generated by the economy in the past few years at the national level. The Government proposes to absorb substantial part of this increase in primary and secondary education, while also investing heavily in higher education.

The government has taken several strong initiatives to improve and overhaul the existing system of education. It has taken prudent step towards streamlining the education sector at the national level. Education sector reform Action Plan 2001-2005 is one of the examples of this multi-pronged strategy which envisage in it the devolution of responsibility of the delivery of the education to local governments along with improving the overall literacy, enrollment and access to education. Also, the National Education Policy 1998-2010 is currently under review to include to participation of all the stakeholders and ensuring ownership of the policy by federating units and other stakeholders. A National Education Assessment System (NEAS) is one of the key programs meant to improve the quality of education at the elementary level. For the first time in the history of Pakistan , an Education Census was carried out in 2005 with a view to providing more comprehensive information regarding the status of education in Pakistan to facilitate policy makers for making informed decisions. Since this is the first time that any such Census has been conducted, the results are not necessarily comparable with the data collected through the administrative set up. However, where possible necessary comparisons have been made with National Education Census (NEC).

According to the Education Census 2005, there are currently 227791 institutions in the country. The over all enrolment is recorded at 33.38 millions with teaching staff of 1.357 million. Out of the total institutions 151,744 (67 percent) are in public sector catering to 22 million (64 percent) of enrolled students and 0.723 million (53 percent) of the teaching staff. In case of private sector, there are 76047 institutions (33 percent) catering to 12 million student and 0.632 (47 percent) of the teaching staff. According to the data , 167446 (74 percent) of the total institutions are located in the rural areas while only 60345 (26 percent) are located in the urban areas. Out of the total institutions in the rural area, 132008 (79 percent) are public institutions while only 35458 (21 percent) are private. In case of urban areas, this trend has reversed as 40609 (67 percent) of the institutions are private while only 19736 (33 percent) are public. Currently there are 122349 (53 percent) primary, 38449 (17 percent) middle and 25090 (11 percent) secondary schools in the country. There are 86 percent primary schools in the public sector and 14 percent in the private sector. There are 51 percent higher secondary schools in the public sector whereas 49 percent are in the private sector. Around 70 percent of total vocational/polytechnics are found to be in the private sector. In case of degree colleges, 68 percent are public and 32 percent are private. Of the total students enrolled, 37 percent are in the primary level, 20 percent in the middle while 28 percent in the secondary level. The overall teacher to student ratio at the primary level 1: 31, 1: 21 at the middle level and 1:23 at the secondary level in the country but it may vary by urban/ rural and public/private scenario. At the primary level in rural areas for example, there are 34 students per teacher while in urban areas the ratio is 1: 24. Total number of general universities is 49 of which, 13 are located in the rural areas while 36 are located in the urban areas. Provision of university level education is still dominated by the public sector as out of the total 31 are public while only 18 are private universities. There are two types of religious schools called Mosques schools and Deeni Madaris that are operating within the education sector. There are 12153 Deeni Madaris in the country. Around 55 percent are located in the rural areas and around 97 are privately managed. The total enrollment in these Madaris is 1549242 which is only 4.6 percent of the overall enrollment. Around 65 percent of these institutions are located in the province of Punjab and NWFP. Total number of primary school teachers is 399517 out of which 78 percent are serving in the public sector whereas 22 percent in the private sector. Similarly, out of the total secondary school teacher

Out of the total covered institutions 12737 (5 percent) have been found non- functional. From the covered institutions 12737 (11589 schools and 1148 others) almost all in the public sector have been reported as non- functional. The Sindh province has reported the largest share i.e., 58 percent of non- functional institutions. Out total public institutions, 35 percent were without boundary wall, 31 percent were found to be without drinking water, 54 were without electricity, 38 percent were without proper Latrine and 6 percent were without a building. Lack of physical infrastructure is increasingly becoming one of the major causes for low enrollment and high drop out rates in the country. For this purpose the government has recently earmarked Rs. 1.05 billion for 2006-07 for the provision of missing facilities to the government schools through the President's Education Sector Reforms. The amount would be spent on provision of water, toilets, science and computer labs and other facilities. This program would continue until all the schools have been brought to a respectable state. According figures, around 41 percent of total schools in Sindh were found to be without building, 35 percent in Punjab , 12 percent in NWFP and 6 percent in Balochistan. Around 39 percent schools in Punjab , 27 percent in Sindh, 17 percent in NWFP and 9 percent in Balochistan are without electricity. In Punjab 29 percent of schools are without proper arrangement of clean drinking water as compared to 25 percent in Sindh, 21 percent in NWFP and 12 percent in Balochistan. The percentage of schools without proper Latrine ranges from 39 percent in Punjab , 22 percent in Sindh, 18 percent in NWFP and to 11 percent in Balochistan.

Total number of intuitions in the country with building is 216490 out of which 51.6 are in satisfactory condition, 26 percent need minor repair, 17 percent need major repair and only 5.7 percent found to be in dangerous condition.