Struggling against the Odds of Poverty, Access, and Gender: Secondary Schooling for Girls in Pakistan

While schooling outcomes for girls have improved over the period 2001–11,progress has been uneven within Pakistan. Rural girls lag far behind urban girlsand progress across the provinces remains unequal. The transition to secondaryschool—in some ways more critical for improving employability, reproductivehealth, and other outcomes—shows even more disparate progress by province andincome class. Questions about the preference for public versus private schools andthe actual choice of schools available to girls in most rural areas need to be answeredif we are serious about a rapid escalation of secondary school enrollments for girls.We use data from the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey for 2001/02and the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLMS) for2007/08 and 2010/11 to look at patterns in this transition. Access is likely to be themain driving force behind the transition to secondary-level schooling. Initial findingsreflect the almost total reliance on public schools for 10–14-year-old girls. Thissuggests that private secondary schools are not an option for girls in rural areas. Thenext major intervening factor is household income level: even rich families appear tofavor public schools for girls. The data also suggest that girls from poor and largefamilies compete with their brothers and other siblings for limited resources.