The World Bank today approved an aid package of $900 million to Pakistan to help the country improve its state of education and livelihood in rural areas.
The massive financial package would be used to help improve education in the two Pakistani states of Punjab and Sindh and to further scale up a community driven development project active in 35,000 villages throughout the country, the World Bank said.
The Bank said while the net national primary school enrollment jumped from 42 per cent in 2001 to 56 per cent in 2007, young Pakistanis were still the least likely school attendants in all South Asia, and there exists wide boy-girl and rural-urban disparities.
"Even where there have been gains in student enrollment as in Punjab and Sindh, these have yet to translate into improved student learning," said Yusupha Crookes, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan.
In addition to continued efforts to improve access and equity, these education projects will put a greater emphasis on the quality and relevance of education.
Central to achieving these outcomes is the focus on improving governance, management, and capacity in education, which are at the heart of the provincial governments' reform strategies, he said.
The Punjab Education Sector Project ($350 million) and the Sindh Education Sector Reform Project ($300 million) support the provincial governments' education reform programmes which aim to increase school participation and progression, reduce gender and rural-urban disparities, and improve quality and education sector governance.
The World Bank also approved $250 million for the Third Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF-III) Project, a poverty alleviation programme that has already reached more than 2.5 million people, it said.
