Abstract

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is the largest citizen led; household based learning accountability initiative that aims to fill a gap in learning outcomes and provide reliable estimates on the schooling status of children (aged 5-16 years) in rural and selected urban districts of Pakistan. Inspired by ASER India, it is firmly embedded in a major concern that the right to education as encompassed in Article 25A of the constitution for 5-16 year olds is driven by access and not necessarily learning, thus undermining a fundamental entitlement. ASER is a social movement; a South-South initiative in 8 countries of South Asia, Africa and Mexico.

Based on a tested methodology, ASER collects data from households, government and private schools on the status of schooling, and tests children on three basic competencies i.e. Language (Urdu / Sindhi / Pashtu), English and Mathematics. The results of the ASER survey are presented at village, district, provincial and national level. The findings are disseminated widely to targeted audiences, including parliamentarians, teacher unions/associations, public sector education cadres, media and academic institutions to create a basis for policy shifts and service delivery arrangements to bring a change in the status of education and learning in Pakistan.

The aim of this session is to highlight the role ASER Pakistan plays each year in providing household and village/block based evidence on children’s learning and spurring multiple research across Pakistan and beyond. As ASER results provide evidence on key thematic issues such as learning, equity, teaching quality, school facilities, the roundtable will highlight:

• How ASER 2013 informs thematic discussions on issues such as learning and quality, access and equity across public and private provision
• Availability of ASER raw data for research across a range of themes
• Contribution of the evidence to the ongoing global conversations on the post 2015 development agenda.