Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
167
Figure 61 Learning achievements by location (urban/rural) and by grade/class
A. Literacy B. Numeracy
Source: ASER 2015 National Report Urban, ASER 2015 National Report Rural
Provincial disparities:
Rural. Looking at rural students in the various provinces, stark disparities in achievements can be
observed. In terms of the 4 main provinces, Punjab leads in the literacy category with about 70%
of children able to read a story in Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto (in Class 5). It is followed by the much
lower performing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan, all well below 50%. Punjab’s lead
in numeracy is much lower, at almost 60% of children able do to a 2 digit division (in Class 5). KP
and Balochistan come 2nd and 3rd, in the 40-50% range, and Sindh performs significantly worse
than the other regions with less than 40% of children able to do a 2 digit division.
This differential learning achievement in rural areas may be due, amongst other reasons, to the
strong political will in Punjab and KP that has pushed for educational reforms and the
implementation of educational sector plans.
Urban. Looking at urban settings, while disparities remain among provinces, the trends are
slightly different than those found in rural settings in Class 5. Firstly, with respect to literacy in
urban settings Balochistan has higher levels of attainment than Punjab. Children in Class 5 in cities
in Balochistan do better than Punjab (and the other 2 main provinces) in literacy categories. In
terms of literacy, KP (and not Balochistan/Sindh) is the province with the lowest attainment. In
terms of numeracy, Sindh cities lead, followed by cities in Punjab, Balochistan and KP.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural
Class 1 Class 3 Class 5
% of children who read (URdu/Sindhi/Pasto)
Nothing Letters Words Sentences Story
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural
Class 1 Class 3 Class 5
% of children can do arithmetics
Nothing
Number recognition (1-9)
Number recognition (10-99)
Subtraction (2 digits)