Micro-Supply Capacity Assessment and Quality of Education for the Public Sector Schools in Punjab (Pakistan)

Education is an essential input for economic development and is one of the basic human rights. Basically, education provides and contributes to the quality of human assets to achieve all development goals, such as poverty reduction, gender empowerment, improving human capital, and enhances socioeconomic benefits. However, unfortunately, education is the one of the deprived sector and its targets have not been achieved in Pakistan in the past decades. This paper contributes to understanding the micro-supply capacity assessment for the public sector schools of Punjab, using annual school census 2014 and monthly schools reports. It adopts the micro-supply capacity assessment method prepared by the World Bank consulting firm GEDESO (2014). The study shows that 45 percent schools in Punjab are deficient with respect to infrastructure and faculty. Out of 45 percent deficient schools 69 percent are primary schools. Overall, more than 50 percent students are enrolled in the deficient schools. To enroll the 3.2 million school-age children and enhance the quality of education, the government of Punjab should focus on the development of infrastructure and minimizing of lack of faculty, especially in the primary schools.