Executive Summary
The goal of this report is to study the structure, services and challenges of the low-cost private schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The study aims to: (a) Analyze existing coverage and spread of low cost private schools in KP; (b) Map existing market structure, competition scenario and potential for growth; and (c) Examine incentives and motivation of existing and prospective service providers for setting up, sustaining and scaling up schools to facilitate increase in enrolment.
Literature cited indicates that during the last few decades, there has been a sharp growth in the number of private schools across Pakistan. A major contributor to this growth has remained the inability of the public sector to meet the increasing demand as well as to offer quality education. According to government statistics and some studies almost 33 to 50 per cent of students in Pakistan are currently enrolled in private schools.
The data collection methods employed for this study include documentary review, survey of 140 low cost private schools in seven districts, focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews with parents, school owners and key government officials. In order to map the size and growth of private sector in KP the data has been extracted from the National Education Census (NEC) 20051 and National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) for 2011-12.
Key results indicate that profitability and social service are the two major motivations for establishing the low cost private schools in KP, and most of the schools are established with initial investment coming from the personal savings of the owner. Although, the school owners are educated professionals, they generally lacked capacity and experience to run a school. An interesting observation is that the most private schools are located in close proximity to government school within the radius of one kilometre thus rendering the selection criteria of the EEF programmes non-practical. Focus group discussions indicates that there is an increasing trend in transfer of students from the government schools to low cost private schools due to better curriculum in the private schools and high teacher absentia in the government schools. The report also finds that there is a high degree of influx in the private education market marked by simultaneous closure of schools, sale to new owners as well as inclusion of new entrants. As most of the low cost private schools charge fee in the range of PKR 300-1200 per month, private schools are willing to accept support from the government in form of direct monetary support, subsidizing transportation cost and financing of building infrastructure.
