As Budget 2025–26 unfolds, an intriguing mystery demands our attention: why do textbook costs vary so wildly across provinces, and what hidden factors are driving these puzzling numbers? Beneath the surface of official figures lies a story of contradictions, unexplained surges, and questions that taxpayers deserve answered.
Education budgets in Pakistan often make headlines—usually for being too small or poorly spent. But the newly released figures for free textbook allocations in the 2024–25 fiscal year raise a more precise and troubling question: why does it cost nearly ten times more to provide textbooks in KP and Sindh than in Punjab?
The numbers speak volumes. Punjab, with an estimated 12 million students enrolled in public schools, has allocated Rs 1.9 billion for free textbooks. That comes to just Rs 158 per student. By contrast, KP and Sindh, with approximately 5.9 million and 5.5 million students, have allocated Rs 8.545 billion and Rs 7.5 billion, respectively. This translates into Rs 1,449 per student in KP and Rs 1,364 in Sindh.
This disparity is baffling. Public school textbooks across provinces are printed using the same curriculum, paper quality, and production standards. A full set of textbooks from Grade 1 to Grade 10 typically costs between Rs 300 to Rs 600 at bulk rates. So what explains the inflated costs in KP and Sindh?
The likely answer lies in how the provinces structure their budgets—and what gets bundled into the term “free textbooks.” Punjab benefits from a centralised and strictly monitored procurement system through the Punjab Curriculum & Textbook Board (PCTB). KP and Sindh, in contrast, operate through more decentralised, district-level procurement channels. These are harder to audit and more vulnerable to inefficiencies, administrative bloat, and rent-seeking.
A separate report revealed that 11,000 schools in Sindh had teachers but no students—functionally dead institutions kept alive on paper
Some provinces may also be bundling logistics, warehousing, staff costs, or “wastage allowances” into their textbook budgets. While some overhead is understandable, these ancillary costs cannot logically explain a tenfold difference—unless procurement practices are inefficient or opaque.
The KP and Sindh governments owe their taxpayers clear answers: are they truly spending this much more to deliver the same product—or are inflated costs masking bureaucratic inefficiency or systemic misuse of funds?
This budgetary mismatch is even more troubling when set against a sharp rise in out-of-school children. A May 2024 report by journalist Kasim Abbasi revealed that Pakistan adds nearly 700,000 children to its out-of-school population every year. Between 2016–17 and 2021–22, the total grew from 22.02 million to 26.21 million—a 4.2 million increase in just six years.
Breakdown of Out-of-School Children (in millions)
| Province | 2016-17 | 2021-2022 | Increase |
| Punjab | 10.53 | 11.37 | +0.84 |
| Sindh | 6.41 | 7.63 | +1.22 |
| Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | 3.13 | 3.63 | +0.50 |
| Balochistan | 1.91 | 3.13 | +1.22 |
| Islamabad (ICT) | 0.05 | 0.08 | +0.03 |
Despite this grim reality, education budgets continue to grow. KP has proposed Rs 327 billion for 2024–25, rising to Rs 363 billion in 2025–26. Sindh has followed suit. But the disconnect is alarming: higher spending is not leading to higher enrolment or better outcomes.
In this context, the ballooning textbook allocations make even less sense. What is the point of spending Rs 1,400 per student if a rising number of students aren’t in school at all?
Consider Sindh: in 2023–24, the provincial government distributed 4.45 million complete textbook sets. For 2025–26, it plans to distribute 5.5 million sets—a 20% increase, even though enrolment trends do not justify it. KP’s student figures are harder to verify due to lack of transparency, but the same concerns apply.
In Punjab, the numbers are puzzling for a different reason. In 2023–24, the province reportedly distributed free textbooks to just 2.68 million students at a cost of Rs 2.1 billion, amounting to Rs 783.58 per student. Yet in 2024–25, it plans to provide textbooks to a staggering 12 million students, with an allocation of only Rs 1.9 billion, or Rs 158 per student. This represents a nearly fivefold increase in coverage accompanied by a sharp drop in per-student cost—all during a period of persistent inflation. Such a drastic reduction in cost defies economic trends and demands scrutiny. Is Punjab underreporting past expenses, overstating future efficiency, or simply presenting mismatched data? Either way, the discrepancy warrants a serious explanation.
These statistical discrepancies suggest either serious errors in planning or inflated data designed to justify increased spending.
Worse still, these budget lines may be feeding into phantom institutions. In 2022, Sindh’s Education Minister admitted that 5,000 ghost schools were being shut down—1,400 already closed, with another 450 in Umerkot alone. A separate report revealed that 11,000 schools in Sindh had teachers but no students—functionally dead institutions kept alive on paper.
In KP, particularly in the former FATA regions, credible reports have highlighted ghost students and fictitious schools, whose numbers remain hidden behind a wall of bureaucratic silence.
This is not just a story about printing costs. It’s a story about transparency, fiscal responsibility, and the right to education. If Punjab can provide learning materials at one-tenth the cost, then citizens in KP and Sindh deserve to know why they are being charged so much more for so much less.
Before new budgets are approved, a comprehensive, province-wide audit—including physical verification of operational schools and actual student numbers—is urgently needed. Without it, Pakistan’s education spending risks becoming yet another case study in waste, corruption, and lost opportunity.