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ISLAMABAD The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has described the $97 million 'decentralised elementary education project' of the Sindh government as a failure.
The scheme had to be closed one year before the stipulated date because of poor financial performance and lack of progress on the ground, ADB said in its project completion report.
The main objective of the project was to improve access to good quality elementary education in the province. For this, it was to be implemented in all 16 districts of Sindh from July 2003 to October 2008 at a cost of $97 million. Of the total cost, $18.8 million was in foreign exchange.
Under the project only 208 primary schools were upgraded to the elementary school level against a target of 1,200 schools, and only 104 pre-primary classes were started in elementary schools against a target of 1,000 classes.
According to the report, 204 English-medium schools were to be established but not a single one could be set up.
The ADB report said the project failed to achieve targets largely because of its complex and ambitious design which made productive interaction between the bank and Sindh education department difficult. The overall rating for the project was “unsuccessful”.
The province of Sindh accounts for about 25 per cent of the total number of Pakistani children of elementary school-going ages.
Put differently, the province has a quarter of the country's population of children who could be enrolled in classes 1 to 8.
Primary school enrolment in the province mirrored that of the entire country in 2000, with 67 per cent of the eligible students attending classes 1 to 5. However, only 38 per cent of the 12 to 14 year olds progressed to classes 6 to 8.
This number is well below the national average. More importantly, the number has been declining steadily over the last ten years.
Although the project was consistent with priorities of both the provincial government and ADB, its scope was too ambitious, with the Sindh education department tasked with implementing as well as monitoring it.
The department lacked the capacity to simultaneously run and oversee the project, said the report.
As a result, the public elementary education system could not be established, and issues of access, quality, efficiency and equity remained unaddressed.
