Every Child’s Right to Primary Education: Examining the Progress from MDG-2 to SDG-4 in Pakistan

Article 25A of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan requires that the state will provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of five to sixteen. However, despite the passage of 14 years since the above article was introduced, Pakistan still has more than 10 million children of primary education age group that are out of school. Further the children who fortunately are enrolled in the schools are not getting quality education as is evident from the results of the proficiency tests that measure the learning outcomes of these children. Given this grim scenario, this paper attempts to analyze Pakistan’s progress with respect to Millennium Development Goal 2 and Sustainable Development Goal 4 which relates to education. While examining Pakistan’s progress the study focuses on the three main indicators relating to the above goal namely, proficiency of primary school children in subjects of English and Mathematics, the completion rates of primary education and out-of-school children of primary education age group. The paper using mainly qualitative research has identified important factors such as insufficient spending on the educational sector due to government budgetary constraints, sub-optimal teaching quality due to lack of good teachers and natural disruptions like Covid and floods that have hampered Pakistan’s quest for providing quality education to all primary school age children. The paper also suggests practical measures like Public-Private Partnerships, emphasis on the training of teachers and adopting digital means to achieve the goal of free quality primary education by the year 2030 as required under the Sustainable Development Framework.