Overtime Pakistan has made considerable progress in raising adult literacy,
however the goal of universal primary education remains elusive due to low enrollment
and high drop out rates. Despite the two rounds of the much propagated Social Action
Plan in the nineties a sound base for sustained enrollment rates and retention of students
at different levels could not be achieved. The high levels of drop-outs at the primary,
middle, and secondary school level remain the milestones of journey through school
education. The resources spent on dropouts are an “educational wastage”, because the
limited literacy and numeracy skills acquired at less than primary level are lost by the
drop outs. Consequently overtime they may revert to a state of complete illiteracy.
Another kind of educational wastage results from the introduction of various incentive
schemes to attract students. These schemes have yielded limited results, simply because
they are not well integrated through the system. For example, in Sindh, the scheme to
provide free primary education, including books, is beset with the most serious problem
of extended teacher absenteeism in rural areas, and all the students are promoted to next
class even if they do not appear in the examination.