Salaries eat up 90 percent of education budget

ISLAMABAD: Around 90 percent of the education budget is spent on salaries of 1.5 million teachers in the public and private sectors schools but the quality of education is by and large poor, a World Bank (WB) report said on Thursday.

The WB report said that the fact that students’ learning outcomes are mostly not up to the mark can only mean that something is amiss in teacher’s performance because it is reflected in the student’s learning.

Evidence from a WB survey of the lowest performing schools in three districts of Punjab shows that, even within schools, it is teacher performance that determines varying degree of student learning. Standard indicators like teaching experience, school tenure, and teacher training do not appear to be associated with average student test scores.

- thenews.com.pk