In May 2024, the government of Pakistan declared a National Education Emergency, a move that was expected to bring significant change. However, two years later, a review conducted by the Civil Services Academy reveals that the number of out-of-school children remains alarming, estimated to be between 25.1 and 26 million. This figure makes Pakistan home to the second-largest population of out-of-school children in the world, after Nigeria. In essence, despite the declaration of an emergency, there has been no noticeable improvement for parents, teachers, or children.
That gap — between the political language of crisis and the practical absence of change — is the real story here.
The Numbers, Province by Province
Punjab has the largest absolute burden of out-of-school children, with between 9.6 and 10.4 million children, more than any other province in terms of raw numbers. However, the Punjab School Education Department’s own 2026 baseline report provides a more concerning breakdown of this figure: 6.4 million of these children have never been enrolled in school at all, while 3.16 million enrolled but subsequently dropped out. This second number highlights that retention—not just access to education—has become a significant crisis in its own right. Simply getting a child through the school gate is not the same as ensuring they remain in school.
Sindh follows with roughly 7.82 million out-of-school children, including 4.09 million girls. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounts for close to 4.92 million, nearly half of them girls. And then there’s Balochistan — the province every national statistic singles out as the country’s structural failure point. Nearly 80 percent of schools there lack electricity. Girls make up 78 percent of the province’s out-of-school children. The out-of-school rate has actually fallen — from 69 percent in 2023 to 45 percent in 2025 — which sounds like progress until you realise it means well over four in ten school-age children in the province still aren’t in a classroom, even after the improvement.
Where the Money Actually Goes
Here’s the number that explains the rest: Pakistan spends roughly 0.8 percent of GDP on education, down from 2 percent in 2018. The Incheon Declaration — the international benchmark Pakistan itself signed onto — recommends 4 to 6 percent. Pakistan isn’t close, and the trend line is moving the wrong way, not the right one; education expenditure actually fell 29 percent between July 2024 and March 2025 alone.
And of what little does get spent, most of it never reaches a classroom in any form a student would recognise. Sindh allocates close to 90 percent of its education budget to salaries and administration. Balochistan spends 81 percent the same way. That’s not investment in education — it’s the cost of keeping a system’s lights on (where there are lights at all), with almost nothing left over for the textbooks, teacher training, transport, or basic infrastructure that would actually pull a child from “out of school” to “in school and learning.”
Why an “Emergency” Declaration Didn’t Do Much
Declaring an emergency is a political move—it conveys a sense of urgency, attracts donor attention, and provides ministers with talking points at conferences. However, this declaration does not, in itself, lead to the construction of a single classroom or the hiring of a single teacher. The review conducted by the Civil Services Academy is straightforward: it asserts that Pakistan’s education crisis is “no longer primarily about policy formulation but about execution.” Each province has developed a roadmap under the National Education Action Plan 2026. These plans are in place, yet the gap between the plans and actual classrooms seems to have widened.
One of the main issues is structural: education is a provincial matter in Pakistan following the 18th Amendment. This means that when a national emergency is declared in Islamabad, it must be implemented by four different provincial governments, each with its own capacities, priorities, and levels of dysfunction. A single national slogan applied to significantly different provincial contexts leads to the situation we currently face—centralized announcements with little progress at the local level.
The Compounding Cost of Doing Nothing
There is also a significant issue related to food insecurity, which is not incidental. Survey data indicates that households experiencing food insecurity are approximately five times more likely to pull their children out of school and push them into labor. Typically, boys are taken out of school to work, while girls often leave for early marriage, domestic responsibilities, or simply because families with limited resources prioritize sending a son to school over a daughter. This crisis does not have a single cause; it stems from a combination of poverty, gender norms, provincial neglect, and chronic underfunding that compound on one another, affecting generation after generation.
Twenty-six million children out of school today represents more than just a statistic for this year; it reflects the implications for the next thirty years. This means a diminished workforce for Pakistan, a weakened tax base, and many mothers who will lack the literacy skills necessary to assist their children with homework — a situation exacerbated by continued inadequate funding from the state. An emergency, by definition, requires a response that matches the scale of the issue. Yet, two years after the declaration, the response remains far from adequate.