An empirical study of the access to primary education in South Asia

Abstract

Human capital development is one of the most essential components to achieve economic growth.This study explores the access to primary education in pakistan by finding the gini coefficient and comparing with those of other South Asian countries. The secondary data was achieved from World Bank and it was found that the access to primary education in pakistan was not very satisfying and the access to education in the rural was found to be poorer than in urban areas. The other South Asian countries also did not show encouraging results to the access to education. The access to education to male was better than females.The primary attendance rate is also not very high which reflects the need to invest more in primary education.The paper reccomends public-private partnership to provide education to the disadvantaged. Also the allocation of the GDP on education needs to be improved and proper control mechanisms developed to monitor the spending of funds. The development and growth in the country needs to be pro poor so that the disadvantaged can benefit the most from economic growth and uplift their status in the society.As primary education is the pre requisite for all other levels of education austere measures need to be taken to improve the attendance level and access to primary education in Pakistan.