n 2022-2023, the federal and provincial governments of Pakistan allocated Rs 1,345 billion to education. Add to this private schools, tuition and out of pocket spending and you get approximately Rs 2.2 trillion spent on education annually.

This isn’t exactly free education, is it?

Education is an expensive and complex service with many nuances to its provision. The inclusion of Article 25-A by the Eighteenth Amendment mandated the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children aged 5-16. Furthermore, by abolishing the Concurrent Legislative List, the amendment placed education largely in the domain of the provinces of Pakistan. Within this context, some key questions emerge and need to be discussed and addressed if the right to free education is to be enforced in a substantive manner.

Who spends how much, and how well?

At the popular level, the words “free education” send out the wrong signal – that education is free. It is not; someone needs to pay for it. The question is: what percentages of this payment should be made by the federal, provincial and district governments. In terms of current trends, the state of Pakistan spends 1.7 percent of its GDP on education, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2022-2023. On top of this, according to estimates by the Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS), spending by parents on private education is approximately Rs 598 billion. Furthermore, due to significant issues of quality in both the public and private sectors, a huge market of after school tuition has developed in which parents are forced to spend around Rs 306 billion.

There are also substantial areas of concern with regard to these amounts. First, spending 1.7 percent of the total GDP on education falls below the international minimum of allocating at least 20 percent of the budget to education as stated in UNESCO’s Framework of Action for Education. Second, of what is allocated, not all is spent. As per statistics compiled by I-SAPS, governments at both the federal and provincial levels have been unable to utilise the entirety of the budget allocated to education.

For example, Sindh and Balochistan were only able to utilise 42 and 44 percent, respectively, of their development budget. The Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were able to utilise 39 and 79 percent, respectively, of their non-salary education budget. This low allocation and subsequent low expenditure create significant issues. For example, the Pakistan Institute of Education found constrained financial resources to be a major reason for the startlingly high dropout levels of girls from schools as they moved to secondary level schooling.

All in all, when it comes to bearing the cost of free education in Pakistan, governments despite allocating less than international standards still struggle to utilise education budgets within financial cycles. Furthermore, parents who send their children to both private and public schools end up having to pay tuition fees due to issues of quality. All told, education in Pakistan is not free and the issue of financing its costs merits greater consideration.

What exactly is free education?

Article 25-A mandates free and compulsory education for children aged 5-16. This in and of itself raises some key questions:

What about Early Childhood Education (ECE)?

The value of educating children from the very early stages of their life has come to be recognised globally. The fact that a period of rapid brain development takes place from birth to the age of 8 means that ECE plays a critical role in making sure that a strong cognitive foundation geared towards learning is built. As per the UNESCO, this not only allows children to become lifelong learners but also helps to reduce the gap between the socially advantaged and disadvantaged at the beginning of their learning journey. Article 25-A is only applicable for children aged 5 and above. Does this mean that those below 5 are excluded from compulsory and free education? That, of course, cannot be the intent behind the constitutional provision. Consequently, legislative action is necessary to expand the ambit of the age bracket.

What about students who join late or struggle at school?

The constitutional mandate for free education ends at 16 years of age. This does not account for a vast number of students who enter schooling late or who, once in school, struggle academically and are held back from advancing to senior levels. Consider a student who in the 8^th grade failed twice and is now 17 years of age. Must s/he now pay for the remaining two years of education? A possible solution lies in enacting legislation which mandates free and compulsory education according to grades and not ages.

Does this apply equally to private schools?

Currently, children aged 5-16 who are in private schools do not receive a free education. That said, should the state attempt to provide free education in the private sector. If yes, does the state have the financial capacity to do so? This does not even take into account the fact that a sizeable number of students within this age bracket also receive private tuition.

What about quality?

Clearly, Article 25-A could not possibly intend for the provision of an education that is lacking in quality. As such, the persistent and increasingly severe issues of learning losses and lack of quality within both the public and private sectors pose a serious challenge to the substantive implementation of the right to free education.

To address these questions, three key areas need to be focused. First, innovative financial models must be created to address the unique demands of providing free education. Second, vibrant public-private partnerships must be cultivated. Third, bipartisan political dialogue is required to arrive at an agreement on how to effectively finance free education across the federal, provincial and district tiers of government. All of this can only happen when the larger conversation about the right to free education shifts from a simple demand to a comprehensive discussion on the key questions surrounding this issue. To truly effectuate the essence of Article 25-A, we must change what we talk about when we talk about free education.

The writer is a public policy analyst at the Institute of Social and Policy Sciences