By Irfan Ali The most consequential asset of any province lies neither in its transport systems nor in the natural resources buried beneath its soil. It lies in the intellectual and productive potential of its people. Roads, bridges and public infrastructure may facilitate development, but it is an educated population that sustains it. For Sindh, therefore, the struggle to bring every child into the classroom is not merely an educational undertaking; it is a defining social and economic imperative. For years, the province’s education system has remained under intense public and media scrutiny. Dilapidated school buildings, a large out-of-school population, shortages of teachers, weak attendance mechanisms and the enduring controversy surrounding ghost employees have shaped much of the public discourse. These concerns are legitimate and cannot be dismissed. Yet they constitute only one side of a far more complex picture. Any balanced assessment must also take into account the extraordinary pressures under which Sindh’s education system has operated. Between 2010 and 2022, the province endured successive climate-related disasters that damaged educational infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. International and government-supported assessments indicate that more than 25,000 schools were partially or completely damaged during the catastrophic floods of 2010 and 2022. Approximately 5,655 educational institutions were affected in 2010, while the floods of 2022 damaged an estimated 19,808 schools. The consequences extended well beyond the destruction of buildings. Schools were converted into temporary shelters, access routes were washed away, communities were displaced and household incomes collapsed. For thousands of children, particularly those living in rural and flood-prone districts, the disaster widened the distance between home and classroom. Poverty, displacement and child labour compounded the risk of permanent educational exclusion, while girls faced the additional barriers of restricted mobility, safety concerns and the absence of nearby post-primary institutions. It is against this difficult backdrop that Sindh’s emerging education reforms must be understood. The province has not overcome its educational crisis, nor can decades of structural neglect be reversed within a single political or budgetary cycle. Nevertheless, a discernible change is taking place in the direction of policy. The emphasis is gradually shifting from fragmented interventions towards a broader framework encompassing school financing, teacher availability, institutional expansion, verified enrolment and digital accountability. One of the most notable developments has been the introduction of the School-Specific Budget, a decentralised financing mechanism intended to place limited but meaningful decision-making authority closer to the classroom. Under the initiative, school heads have been granted greater financial autonomy to address institution-specific needs rather than waiting for every minor repair or purchase to pass through layers of centralised administration. The programme was allocated Rs18.67 billion in the 2025–26 financial year. This was increased to Rs22.64 billion for 2026–27, reflecting a rise of approximately 21 per cent. The allocation for school furniture and fixtures was also raised substantially, from Rs3.81 billion to Rs7.62 billion. The significance of this reform lies not merely in the size of the allocation, but in the principle behind it. Schools do not face identical problems. An institution in a flood-affected village may urgently require roof repairs and drinking-water facilities, while an overcrowded urban school may need additional furniture, classrooms or sanitation arrangements. By allowing school administrations to respond to their own priorities, the School-Specific Budget introduces a degree of flexibility that has long been absent from public-school management. Across the province, the initiative has enabled schools to undertake essential repairs, restore classrooms, improve sanitation, purchase furniture and create safer and more welcoming learning environments. Such improvements may appear modest when viewed individually, but collectively they can strengthen parental confidence in public schools and help restore dignity to the learning experience. The battle against educational exclusion, however, cannot be won through infrastructure alone. Recognising the multiple social and economic factors that keep children outside school, the Sindh government, in collaboration with Unicef, has developed a five-year Multi-Sectoral Roadmap for Out-of-School Children and Adolescents. Covering the period from July 2025 to June 2030, the roadmap seeks to reduce the province’s out-of-school population by 50 per cent. Its multi-sectoral character is particularly significant. A child may remain outside school because of poverty, disability, child labour, the absence of identity documentation, inadequate transport or restrictive social norms. These barriers cannot be removed by the Education Department acting in isolation. They demand coordination across social protection, health, local government, civil registration and community-level institutions. The roadmap therefore represents an important conceptual shift. It treats educational exclusion not simply as a matter of insufficient enrolment, but as a broader social challenge requiring sustained and coordinated intervention. In doing so, it places the out-of-school child—not the administrative department—at the centre of policy. Teacher availability has been another persistent weakness of the public education system. A school without teachers may exist on official records, but it cannot function as an institution of learning. Sindh has sought to narrow this gap through one of the largest merit-based recruitment exercises undertaken in its education sector. Nearly 97,000 Primary School Teachers and Junior Elementary School Teachers were recruited through tests administered by Sukkur IBA University. The use of an independent testing service helped establish a more transparent route into public employment and strengthened the principle of merit in a sector historically vulnerable to political influence. The scale of the recruitment is important not only in numerical terms. Thousands of schools that had been operating with inadequate staff received additional teachers, while previously non-functional institutions gained the human resources required to reopen. The process also included women, persons with disabilities and members of minority communities, lending the recruitment exercise a wider dimension of social inclusion. The growing presence of female teachers is particularly consequential for rural and conservative communities. In many such areas, parents are more willing to enrol and retain their daughters when women teachers are available. Teacher recruitment, therefore, is not merely an employment measure; it is also a means of improving access, attendance and public confidence. The province has more recently expanded its focus towards specialised teaching categories. In July 2026, the government approved
