October 30, 2006	Monday	Shawwal 6, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: Pakistan is among the world’s 12 highest recipients of external aid for education in South Asia, and at least three-quarters of this aid is intended for basic education, says a new report released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

Countries joining Pakistan are Bangladesh, India and Nepal in seeking external aid particularly for programmes focusing on the ‘Education for All’ (EFA) goals. While the region received only 16 per cent of the global amount of total aid in 2004, it was the main recipient of aid for basic education which amounted to 50 per cent, according to ‘2007 Global Monitoring Report’ issued on October 26.

Neither Pakistan nor any other country of South and West Asia have signed the declaration on aid effectiveness with the intention of improving coordination of aid flows and ensuring that they are fully consistent with government priorities.

The Fast Track Initiative (FTI), now involving over 30 donors and increasingly seen as the principal vehicle for encouraging greater aid for basic education in small and medium- sized countries, promotes EFA objectives. However, several large countries in the region, including Pakistan, have many years of experience in managing multi-donor basic education programmes, says the report.

Overall, aid commitments made explicitly for basic education in all developing countries increased from $1.4 billion in 2000 to $3.3 billion in 2004. Despite this positive trend, basic education accounted for less than three per cent of total aid in 2004.

If various recent donor pledges are met, the total amount of aid to basic education could increase to $5.4 billion by 2010. However, this would still fall short of the estimated $11 billion per year needed to achieve the full EFA programme, points out the report.

The gross enrolment ratio (GER) or the level of participation in pre-primary education in Pakistan remained between 35 to 50 per cent. The pre-primary pupil-to-teacher ratio in the country was one teacher per 40 students. Such overcrowding makes it nearly impossible to provide the individual care and attention that very young children require, the report says.

Despite the expansion in primary school enrolment, the challenge of universal primary education (UPE) remains large.

Pakistan together with India has been singled out having the largest numbers of children not in school with over 4.5 million each. All together, South and West Asia remain home to 16 million such children, about one-fifth of the world total, and 69 per cent are girls, the highest percentage for any region, the report says.

In Pakistan, according to the report, the percentage of children who are out of school and have never been enrolled and may never be to school without additional incentives is above 80 per cent.