129
million children have been enrolled in the two provinces where government pays the per child
voucher costs to partners who can perform service delivery effectively. Regular third party
evaluations /monitoring are associated with these partnerships.
Recently the government of Sindh has successfully launched the public sector financed model of
school improvement through the Education Management Organizations (CSOs/Private Sector)
under the umbrella of the Sindh PPP Amendment Act 2015 as service providers. This is a good
example of sustainable partnerships much like the Education Foundations that last over time.
These forms of partnership and intervention has helped in pushing the needle forward albeit
modestly but with a great deal of promise for the future. Organizations are mobilized through a
transparent and capability based approach that lead to outcomes. This mode of financing from
the government is largely sustainable until the latter’s resources keep flowing for all the schools
established and/or managed through PPPs.
iii) Privately funded schools/education programs to demonstrate what can be done at scale or
as pilots with independent management, oversight and better results as discussed above. Here
CSOs, trusts and not for profit private sector programs have assumed scale with innovations
such as the The Citizens Foundation (TCF) as an eminent example and with almost 1500 schools
across Pakistan and many other organizations running education initiatives through their own
sustainable resources and strategies. In terms of empowerment and building of systems to run
high quality high outcome schools these programs have generated very inspiring results.
However, the challenge for mobilizing continuous resources is a major one for such
organizations that requires refining of the business model for more sustainable long term
solutions for reaching the most vulnerable over time.
CSOs also support government technically in generating large nationwide data sets on learning
and equity such as the case of Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), researching complex
issues on teachers, disability, language and learning, English proficiency etc. where the
government capacity may be lagging. ASER is citizen and volunteer led sharing important data
for benchmarking annually that is widely used and recorded in the Government of Pakistan’s
prestigious annual Economic Survey report as well as mapped in the Education Sector Plans
developed by the provinces.
What is significant in all these innovative programs is that there is a growing appetite of the
government towards partnerships with CSOs/private for improvement and value addition
through their own resources or that of the government. However, under the security challenges
faced by Pakistan there is increasing scrutiny of CSOs as well. Whilst space for non-state actors
has been growing at a healthy pace in education, there is need for more rigorous research on
what works and also support for programs that do through more predictable financing models
that ensure integrity and growth.
Increasingly INGOs such as PLAN International, the British Council, Save the Children, Oxfam,
Right to Play, IRC, etc. have assumed the role of implementers and supported service delivery,
capacity building and advocacy across Pakistan with or without local CSOs/private sector.
Although the space for civil society activism is being curtailed given security challenges with
complex procedures to register and operate. In spite of these issues the public sector
procurement regimes and laws are becoming more proactive on procuring services of CSOs and
not for profit and for profit private sector backed by robust public private partnership
legislation and partnerships. Recent experience in Sindh province stands out, where Education