Alif Ailaan Midterm Report Card for Members of the Provincial Assembly – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa May 11, 2013 to November 11, 2015 On November 11, 2015, Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies and the National Assembly reached the mid-term mark in their tenure. The Alif Ailaan campaign has assessed the performance of every MNA and MPA since the 2013 elections against four benchmarks for education and awarded grades in each category, as well as an overall grade to each MNA, each MPA, and the assemblies overall. This document contains the Alif Ailaan Midterm Report Card for MPAs. What are the MPAs graded on? The four benchmarks on which MPAs have been graded on are: a) the state of school facilities (with the highest grades for those constituencies that made the most progress in the provision of boundary walls, electricity, drinking water and toilet facilities since the 2013 election) b) the state of gender parity (the ratio of boys to girls or girls to boys – with the highest grades for those constituencies that have shown the greatest movement toward parity since the 2013 election) c) the student to teacher ratio (with the highest grades for those constituencies with the largest improvement in student teacher ratio since 2013 – where low student to teacher ratios are considered better) d) the retention rate between class IV and class II (with the highest grades awarded to those constituencies with the highest improvement in the retention rate since 2013) Data limitations The construction of the grades is not based on ideal benchmarks, but rather on benchmarks made from official government data on education that was available, as well as representative of a desirable outcome in education. The four benchmarks were thus chosen to reflect the four key areas where government actions can produce direct and immediate results, namely: school building infrastructure, equal provision of education for girls and boys, the ratio of teachers to students, and the ability of the system to retain students within the primary school system. The grades do not reflect the state of education in a given constituency, but rather the demonstrable change in each constituency since the 2013 election. Finally, the most recent available official government data that can be reported by constituency is from the end of 2014 – therefore the grades will not reflect any changes to the education landscape during this calendar year. How to read an MPA’s grades? Each MPA has scored grades on school facilities, gender parity, student to teacher ratio and retention. The grades represent the quantum shift made in the given constituency for all public sector schools since the 2013 election. The allocation of grades has been made according to a normal distribution. The highest possible grade is A+ and the lowest is E. 2 A low grade does not necessarily mean that a given constituency is very badly placed and a high grade does not necessarily mean that a given constituency is doing very well. Instead, grades reflect the level of progress made within a given constituency. A low grade does however indicate that a greater effort to improve the state of affairs may have led to a better grade, whereas a high grade shows that measurable improvement was achieved. Highlights of the Midterm Report Card for MPAs from KP Assembly The report card for the KP Provincial Assembly shows that across the entire population of 99 directly elected MPAs, only three MPAs (two from PTI and one from PML-N) can lay claim to constituencies where there is evidence of real overall progress since the 2013 general election. The Chief Minister of the province from PK-13 (Nowshera-II) receives a B. All other MPAs in the Assembly score either a B or a C grade, depending on their performance on each of the four benchmarks we have explored. The overall grade for the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a B. School facilities: The most improved constituencies in terms of school facilities are all from the Hazara and Malakand divisions, (Haripur and Mansehra in Hazara and Swat and Shangla in Malakand). All four MPA constituencies in Bannu receive E grades, indicating a peculiar problem for that district. The Chief Minister’s constituency (PK-13 Nowshera-II) scores a C, as does the leader of the opposition’s constituency in D.I.Khan, the Minister for Elementary & Secondary Education’s constituency in Mardan, and the QWP’s leader and Minister for Irrigation, Social Welfare and Special Education’s constituency in Charsadda. The ANP’s party leader and the former Education Minister from Bunair gets a B for relative improvements in the school facilities in his constituencies. Retention rates: It is interesting to note that the only constituencies that have performed well on this indicator are either in District Swat or Bunair. All seven constituencies of Swat received an A+ grade, while two of the three Bunair constituencies received an ‘A’. D. I. Khan is among the worst performers in this respect, with two constituencies receiving D grades including ex- agriculture minister Ikramullah Gandapur of PTI. All of Haripur’s four constituencies receive a C grade, suggesting absence of improvement in retention in one of the province’s strongest districts in education otherwise. Gender parity: The greatest improvement in gender-parity has been in JUI-F’s Zareen Gul Khan’s constituency of Torghar, resulting in an A+ grade. Charsadda and Nowshera have some of the most improved constituencies with respect to gender parity, with four and three A grades respectively. The poorest performing constituencies in terms of gender parity both received E grades, namely PK 59 (Battagram) and PK 95 (Lower Dir). Four constituencies in Swat and all three constituencies in Bunair receive D grades, suggesting deterioration in gender parity in these districts. This includes ex-Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak of ANP (PK-77 Bunair-I). Student-teacher ratio: Student/Teacher ratio improvement is relatively equally distributed across north and south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Kohistan and D.I. Khan appear to have shown the greatest movement in the student-teacher ratio. Three of Bunair’s constituencies receive A grades. Swat 3 is among the worst performers in this respect, with two E grades. Four constituencies in Peshawar and two in Nowshera have gotten D grades. Six of Mardan’s eight constituencies have C grades, with the notable exception of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Minister Muhammad Atif’s, whose PK-30 (Mardan-VIII) constituency scored a B. Overall, 52% of constituencies have gotten a B or above, suggesting an improvement in student-teacher respect across the province. Homework for MPAs who want to improve Every MPA in the province is performing below par. Even recipients of A grades would not send their own children to a government school. The grades here are being awarded to the state of government schools. This report card clearly shows that there is not only a lot of room for improvement in the state of government schools overall, but a lot of room for improvement in the effort that MPAs invest in improving education. The first and the foremost role of the MPAs is to ensure that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly presents and passes the Right to Free & Compulsory Education Act; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the only province not to do so since the passage of the 18th Amendment in 2010. The MPAs should also play their part in the issuance of the Rules of Business once the Act is passed. Further, MPAs can help improve education through data collection, openness and reporting. Acquiring, processing, cleaning and presenting the data for this exercise is an incredibly resource-intensive exercise that government should be doing itself. Government also must begin to produce data faster, and across a richer array of variables – particularly data on learning outcomes and education quality. The data collected by the Independent Monitoring Unit needs to be made public, with the MPAs having ready access to data and performance of schools within their constituencies. All MPAs can easily pad their grades by insisting on timely and effective improvements in school facility provision, on which government has a rich and detailed database. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has allocated almost PKR 16 billion for various projects of the Elementary & Secondary Education department. The MPAs need to ensure that not only are the funds utilised in schools with the greatest need, but that the Assembly has an oversight role in the utilisation and planning of the allocated funds. MPAs can also affect better student to teacher ratios by insisting on rational allocations of teachers, rather than postings and transfers that suit their patronage of political actors in their constituencies. The school-based recruitment of teachers by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is a commendable policy-shift; the Members of the Provincial Assembly should play their role as far as the oversight in the recruitment and placement of new teachers is concerned. Encouraging girls enrolment and ensuring that practices like corporal punishment are prevented will help MPAs improve gender parity and better retention rates. The girls’ stipend programme should be studied to assess the impact on girls’ enrolment in middle & secondary schools so as to tailor the policy to local environments and conditions where required. 4 The ultimate report card for MPAs will be delivered in 2018 – when the time for re-election comes around. Alif Ailaan hopes to ensure that when it does, voters across the