Balochistan has only about 6-7% of the country’s total population but covers more than 40% of the land area. The population is spread in smaller settlements across the province, which results in increased costs of service delivery.
Given the above context, the delivery of education services is probably more challenging compared with other provinces and areas in the country. Problems of a difficult terrain, poor availability of transportation and poor security22 mean that it
will not be easy to find the required number of teachers for schools, which at present are only 2 per primary school. It was only in 2013-2014 that a significant number of teachers (7000) were recruited by the government.
The school enrolment, even though it has been rising every year, when reviewed with the dropout data shows that a large number of children are leaving the system, and almost 80% drop out between classes 1 and 10. The GER for 2014-
22 A Balochistan Separatist Movement has been going on in the province for a while, targeting the non- Baloch population. At the same time, many Afghan Taliban have crossed the border into Balochistan and reside in the province causing a security risk as well
2015 stands at around 42%, and the NER would be even lower. The dropouts are alarming at the primary level, after completion of primary, and between classes 1 and 10. The girls are dropping out at a higher rate than boys after completion of primary level, perhaps because there are very few opportunities available for the next level of schooling near home.
Similarly, the situation of missing facilities and infrastructure is also very poor, with 80-90% of the children studying without access to water, electricity and toilets. The budgetary allocations on the development side are paltry, which given the poor state of infrastructure is hard to understand.
With a serious shortage of teachers, poor commitment of the government towards teacher capacity building, and given the poor facilities and infrastructure,
especially in primary schools, the performance level of students as reported in the ASER is understandable. In addition to this, the children are made to study either Urdu or English textbooks, neither being their language in Balochistan.
The stakeholders have identified a number of issues that relate to a culture of poor planning within the government, and the inability of the donors to effectively
coordinate with the government for implementation of their programmes. Many issues highlighted by the stakeholders as well as those emerging from analysis of the data relate to the key principles of the Paris Declaration. Is Balochistan driving its own development agenda or largely towing a donor agenda? This is a key question to answer, as it relates to the ownership principle of the Paris
Declaration. Similarly, we need to question if donor interventions align with the government policy frameworks, and whether donors harmonize and coordinate their efforts with each other to avoid duplication and confusion. The weak
presence of a public sphere either in the form of NGOs and CBOs or the media, gives rise to ineffective policy borrowing, with no discourse or dialogue process in place, and no accountability mechanisms ever applied for anyone. Moreover, the NGOs are all funded by different donors, and the essence of a public sphere - debate, dialogue, holding accountabilities, adopting ideas after debate and research – does not align with the way donors or NGOs operate, given their tight deadlines, providing hardly any space for a discourse or review. The presence of a vibrant public sphere can promote better ownership, partnership and
The experience from two USAID projects where I worked indicates that
coordination with the provincial government mostly involved providing a briefing to the secretary’s office once every now and then, or inviting some official of the education department to the concluding sessions of project workshops. Beyond that, neither the government nor the implementing partner bothered to enhance any partnership, build ownership and seek sustainability. Subsequently however, with the establishment of the PPIU in 2008, better coordination was seen with an increased effort to mutually review the progress of donor initiatives and monitor and review results frequently. A project steering committee was formed for EDLINKS involving government and project team officials that came together more frequently to review the progress. Nevertheless, no mechanism for mutual accountability of the government or donor is in place relating to performance, planning or decision making. A donor coordination committee exists at the national level, but it is not sufficient to monitor issues relating to lack of donor coordination at the provincial and district levels where duplication, especially in areas of
teacher training and enrolment is rife, resulting in management difficulties for the government and wastage of resources.
As a consequence, while some interventions did show improved performance of teachers and children, as in the case of USAID funded ESRA project, these could not be continued beyond the project as neither the government nor the donor made any efforts or arrangements to pursue continued commitment of the government. The absence or lack of sustainability in donor led interventions is a consequence of lack of ownership on the part of the government and poor alignment of donor led interventions with government policy frameworks. Overall the effectiveness of international aid programmes has been minimal in helping improve the education indicators and systems in Balochistan for reasons mentioned earlier in this discussion. Almost all aid programmes were driven by tight deadlines, targets and timeframes, aiming at modernising and improving systems through borrowed ‘best practices’. However, the nature and design of aid programmes and projects did not allow the creation of any public sphere or
platform that would have researched and reviewed programmatic interventions, worked towards creating an ownership, and ensured sustainability beyond project mode. The creation and working of a public sphere is paramount for ensuring
viability of any international or local initiatives, and without which sustained improvement is elusive. As reported by some stakeholders, the level of
communication between some donors and the education department was very poor resulting in lack of information and ownership, and an apathy towards the initiative by government officials.