For a long time, Pakistan’s education debate has been dominated by numbers: how many children are in school, how many remain outside it, how many schools have been built and how much enrolment has increased. There are good reasons for this emphasis. Millions of Pakistani children are still denied their constitutional right to education, and bringing them into school must remain a national priority. But an equally important question receives far less attention: what happens to children after they enter school?
This is not a new concern. In my earlier writings on education, I have repeatedly argued that access to a school and access to education are not the same thing. A child may be enrolled, attend classes for several years and move from one grade to the next, yet leave school without the ability to read with understanding, express an idea clearly, work confidently with numbers or think independently. This gap between schooling and learning lies at the heart of Pakistan’s educational challenge.
The recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2025 brings the issue back into focus. Its findings on children’s reading and numeracy are disturbing. Many children who have spent several years in school struggle with tasks expected at much earlier grade levels. The percentages matter, but behind them lies a larger question: what do we mean when we say that a child is being educated?
Our educational planning has traditionally been more comfortable with things that can be counted: schools, classrooms, teachers, enrolled students and textbooks distributed. Such figures are necessary for planning, but they tell us surprisingly little about what children learn. Learning takes place in a less visible space. It happens in the interaction between teachers and students, in children’s encounters with books and ideas and in the questions they are encouraged to ask. It can be seen in the confidence with which a child begins to make sense of the world. None of this fits neatly into a statistical table.
We certainly need school buildings, textbooks and teachers. But their presence does not guarantee learning. Much depends on how a textbook is used, how a teacher engages with students and what kind of intellectual space the classroom provides. The problem, therefore, goes deeper than low learning scores.
For decades, much of our education system has been shaped by a culture in which knowledge is transmitted by the teacher, memorised by the student and reproduced in an examination. The textbook becomes the centre of knowledge, the teacher its authorised interpreter and the examination its final judge. Children can spend years within this system without developing curiosity, understanding or intellectual independence. This brings us to the difficult question of quality.
We sometimes reduce quality to examination results or standardised assessments. These indicators have value, but they cannot tell the whole story. Education should enable children to read, write and work with numbers, but also give them the confidence to ask questions, communicate ideas, solve problems and continue learning beyond the classroom. Foundational literacy and numeracy are essential, but they are the starting point of a good education, not its ultimate purpose.
The ASER findings become more worrying when seen alongside Pakistan’s wider educational indicators. According to the Human Development Report 2025, expected years of schooling in Pakistan stand at only 7.9 years, while mean years of schooling are just 4.3 years. We face two problems at the same time: too many children spend too few years in school, and many of those who attend are not learning enough during those years.
It would be a mistake to turn access and quality into competing priorities. Pakistan cannot first enrol every child and then begin worrying about what happens in the classroom. Both challenges are already with us. Denying a child access to school is unjust. But sending a child to a school that offers little meaningful learning raises another question of justice.
The familiar debate over government and private schools can distract us from this larger concern. There are real differences between the two sectors in resources, governance and learning outcomes. Yet the question that matters cuts across both: what kind of learning experience are we providing to our children?
For decades, much of our education system has been shaped by a culture in which knowledge is transmitted by the teacher, memorised by the student and reproduced in an examination.
Any serious discussion of that question has to include teachers. Teachers are often spoken about as part of the problem, rather than as participants whose knowledge and judgement are central to reform. A short training workshop, a revised textbook or a new assessment scheme is unlikely to transform classroom practice on its own. Teachers need sound initial preparation, opportunities to continue learning and professional trust.
What teachers are expected to teach matters just as much. An overloaded curriculum dominated by factual recall and high-stakes examinations leaves little space for discussion, reflection or creativity. When examinations reward memorised material, it is hardly surprising that teachers teach for the examination and students learn for it. We cannot keep calling for critical thinking while our curriculum and assessment practices reward something quite different.
Language complicates the picture further. Children cannot learn effectively when the language of the classroom becomes a barrier to understanding. Quality also cannot be separated from inequalities of gender, geography, social class and resources. A child in a remote rural school without a library, trained teachers or adequate learning materials starts from a very different position from a child in a well-resourced urban school. Both may be officially described as enrolled, but their educational opportunities are hardly comparable. Quality, then, is also a question of equity.
Pakistan has repeatedly declared education a national priority, but public investment tells a less reassuring story. As I noted recently while discussing the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26, education expenditure remains far below what the scale of the country’s educational challenge requires. Underinvestment reaches the classroom through inadequate teacher development, weak libraries, shortages of learning materials, poor early childhood provision and limited academic support.
We expect children to acquire twenty-first-century skills, yet many study in classrooms that lack even the basic conditions for meaningful learning. Technology is increasingly presented as a possible solution. Smart classrooms, tablets, digital platforms and artificial intelligence can enrich education, but they cannot compensate for weak pedagogy. Putting a screen in front of a child does not automatically change the nature of learning. If the classroom culture remains one of memorisation, technology may simply reproduce it in digital form. Its educational value lies in helping children explore, question, create and understand.
ASER 2025, therefore, is more than another report carrying another set of worrying statistics. It gives us an opportunity to ask what we are actually trying to achieve through education. For years we have asked how many children are in school. We now need to ask what they are learning there. How are they learning it? Which children are being left behind? What happens to curiosity and questioning inside our classrooms? What kind of individuals and citizens do we hope our schools will help to nurture?
Enrolment, schools, teachers and textbooks matter. Without them there can be no education system. But they create the conditions in which education can take place. They are not education itself. The real test begins after the school gate opens. It is found in the classroom, in the relationship between teacher and learner, in a child’s encounter with a book or an idea and, sometimes, in the courage to ask a question to which there may not be one prescribed answer.
Pakistan still faces a formidable challenge of access. Alongside it stands an equally serious challenge of learning. We cannot postpone one until the other has been resolved. The task before us is not simply to bring children to school. It is to make the years they spend there worth something. That is the difference between access to schooling and access to education.