Publication:
Missing School - The Effect of Crises on Students and Teachers in Pakistan

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (508.91 KB)
142 downloads
English Text (88.15 KB)
19 downloads
Published
2024-06-03
ISSN
Date
2024-06-03
Editor(s)
Abstract
Pakistani children have faced nationwide and severe disruptions to their schooling over the past several years, first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then the 2022 floods. Given the country’s vulnerability to climate change, these disruptions are likely to increase. This note explores the government’s response to COVID-19 and school closures in Pakistan; it shows how data disaggregated by gender, household location, and other variables can inform a more effective and inclusive education response and build the education system’s resilience to future emergencies.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Isa, Sana; D'Angelo, Sophia; Barón, Juan D.. 2024. Missing School - The Effect of Crises on Students and Teachers in Pakistan. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41639 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Lessons on Implementation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-26) D'Angelo, Sophia; Barón, Juan D.; Mazari, Haani; Morales, Daniel; Tabares, Santiago Ospina; Polanco, Paola; Kaye, Tom
    This study explored the perceptions and experiences of students, parents, teachers, and other education stakeholders involved in Prográmate, a project that uses a digital personalized learning (DPL) platform to develop secondary school students’ math skills and knowledge in the Dominican Republic.
  • Publication
    Breaking Barriers, Improving Futures: Challenges and Solutions for Girls’ Education in Pakistan
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03) Barón, Juan D.; Bend, Mary; Ejaz, Neelam; Lee, Jessica D.; Trako, Iva
    Abstract: Educating girls has a myriad of benefits ranging from greater empowerment and economic opportunities to improved health outcomes and reduced poverty. In Pakistan, school-age children, especially girls, lack quality educational access and attainment. Girls, in comparison to boys, are less likely to be enrolled in school, less likely to stay in school, and less likely to achieve learning outcomes even if they attend school. One of the biggest challenges Pakistan faces is that the country’s education spending fails to yield results regarding quality and access. This report argues that while it is important to continue to deliver quality education to all children in Pakistan, more girl-specific interventions are needed in Pakistan, especially for girls living in rural areas.
  • Publication
    The Impact of Sri Lanka’s School-Based Management Program on Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices and Student Learning
    (Taylor and Francis, 2021-12) Glewwe, Paul; Aturupane, Harsha; Utsumi, Tomoko; Wisniewski, Suzanne; Shojo, Mari
    Education is widely accepted as a key determinant of economic and social development. Developing countries have made substantial progress in increasing school enrollment rates in the last 50 years, but in many countries’ students are not learning the skills that the curriculum sets as the goals of their education. One policy that has been advocated by experts and international development agencies is school-based management. This paper investigates the effectiveness of a school-based management policy recently introduced in Sri Lanka, the Program for School Improvement (PSI). The PSI established new management structures and provided training and support services in order to: (a) devolve decisions for a range of activities to the school level; (b) increase the participation of parents and the local community in the work of the school; and (c) focus schools’ efforts on student learning. To evaluate the effectiveness of the PSI on measures of school performance, a randomized controlled trial was conducted. Overall, the data show some evidence of changes in the behavior of both principals and teachers in the PSI schools, but most of the observed behaviors did not change. Turning to student learning as measured by test scores, there are also no statistically significant effects, although the (imprecisely) estimated impact on math scores (0.21 standard deviations) is moderately large.
  • Publication
    School Meals Are Evolving
    (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-02-23) Alderman, Harold; Bundy, Donald; Gelli, Aulo
    School meal programs are popular social programs. They are provided to 61 percent of primary students in high-income countries but to a smaller share of students in less wealthy countries. There is a body of evidence documenting their contribution to education, health and nutrition, and social protection. But in each domain, program objectives have evolved: schooling is recognized to be more about learning than grades obtained; nutrition goals include healthy diets that reduce risks of non-communicable diseases and are more environmentally responsible; social protection programs aim to respond to acute crises and address chronic poverty. In addition to assisting in these sectors, school meal programs are tasked with creating food systems that assist smallholder farmers, an endeavor that has yet to be extensively studied. This review examines the latest evidence on these evolving dimensions of school meal programs. Findings suggest that while there is a strong evidence base for school meals, there are also specific gaps in the evidence of effectiveness and a particular lack of clarity around costs. The country-led School Meals Coalition, developed in response to COVID pandemic-related school closures, has brought new momentum to national programs and new urgency for reliable evidence on effectiveness and costs.
  • Publication
    An Impact Evaluation of Sri Lanka's Policies to Promote the Academic Performance of Primary School Students through School Improvement and Report Card Programs
    (Washington, DC, 2011-05) World Bank
    The Government of Sri Lanka's Education Sector Development Framework and Program (ESDFP) initiated a major development innovation for primary and secondary education for the period 2006-2010. Their strategy was organized around four key themes: improving equitable access to basic and secondary education; improving the quality of basic and secondary education; enhancing the economic efficiency and equity of resource allocation; and strengthening service delivery (Ministry of Education, 2007). Under each theme there were a number of key development initiatives. Among these, the program for school improvement, through which the government sought to introduce school-based management, constituted an important innovation. A smaller intervention, the school report card program, was also introduced to inform schools on their performance. The World Bank supported the ESDFP through a programmatic sector-wide operation, the Education Sector Development Project (ESDP), and a range of analytical activities of key initiatives. The Program for School Improvement (PSI) was a central element of the World Bank's support under the ESDP. The World Bank undertook an impact evaluation of the PSI, as part of its analytical assistance to this program. This report presents the findings of this assessment, and comprises five sections. First, there is a concise description of school-based management. Second, there is a discussion of the PSI and School Report Card Program (SRCP) in Sri Lanka. Third, the analytical framework and results of the impact evaluation are discussed. Fourth, the findings and results of the analysis are discussed. Fifth and finally, a set of recommendations are presented for the future of the PSI and the SRCP.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital-in-Health
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-18) World Bank
    Technology and data are integral to daily life. As health systems face increasing demands to deliver new, more, better, and seamless services affordable to all people, data and technology are essential. With the potential and perils of innovations like artificial intelligence the future of health care is expected to be technology-embedded and data-linked. This shift involves expanding the focus from digitization of health data to integrating digital and health as one: Digital-in-Health. The World Bank’s report, Digital-in-Health: Unlocking the Value for Everyone, calls for a new digital-in-health approach where digital technology and data are infused into every aspect of health systems management and health service delivery for better health outcomes. The report proposes ten recommendations across three priority areas for governments to invest in: prioritize, connect and scale.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    World Bank Annual Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) World Bank
    This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.