Analyzing the Education Landscape in SAARC Nations

The eight nations that make up the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – are home to over 1.9 billion people, representing roughly a quarter of the world’s population. Within this enormous demographic lies one of the most complex and uneven education landscapes on earth. Enrollment numbers have climbed steadily for decades, girls are entering classrooms at rates unthinkable a generation ago, and governments have committed to free, universal schooling. Yet millions of children remain out of school, dropout rates remain stubbornly high, and the quality of learning inside many classrooms falls far short of what children need. Understanding how education is delivered, who gets access, and where the system is still falling short is essential to grasping both the progress made and the work that remains.

How education is delivered: a multi-provider system 🔗

Education in SAARC countries does not flow from a single source. It is delivered through an interlocking web of government institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-run initiatives, and private providers – each filling gaps the others cannot.

The government as the primary provider 🔗

In every SAARC country, the state is the foundation of the education system. Governments fund and operate the majority of schools, set curricula, train and pay teachers, and are legally responsible for ensuring every child’s right to education. During the 12th SAARC Summit in 1997, member states reaffirmed their commitment to providing free education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14 years. This commitment was reinforced in 2008, when SAARC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNESCO to advance the Education for All agenda across the region. Despite this framework, governments in many SAARC countries face severe resource constraints. Education spending across SAARC nations ranges from just 1-2% to 4% of GNP, well below the UNESCO-recommended target of 6% for developing countries. This funding gap creates chronic shortages in infrastructure, qualified teachers, and learning materials – shortfalls that other providers have moved in to address.

NGOs and community schools 🔗

Non-governmental organizations have become indispensable actors in SAARC education systems, particularly in reaching children who fall outside the reach of the formal state network. Non-state providers play an important role in expanding access to children underserved by public provision, and their relationship with governments has evolved from simple substitution to complex collaboration. In Bangladesh, large NGOs such as BRAC operate sprawling non-formal education networks that function as a parallel – and often complementary – system alongside government schools. In India, NGOs have had positive impacts on both access and quality by establishing small-scale, locally rooted schools in rural and underserved communities, with the flexibility to adapt to local needs in ways that centralized bureaucracies often cannot. Community schools in Nepal have demonstrated how local ownership can improve both access and learning outcomes, particularly in mountainous areas where state schools are difficult to staff and sustain.

The growing private sector 🔗

The private sector has expanded rapidly across SAARC countries and now serves a significant share of the student population. According to household survey data, almost one-third of school-going children aged 6 to 18 years in South Asia attend private schools, with a high concentration in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Private provision spans a wide spectrum – from elite international schools in urban centers to low-cost neighborhood schools serving working-class families. In Pakistan, up to one-third of children in school are estimated to attend a private institution, many of them low-fee schools operating with limited oversight. The World Bank has found that private schools in India, Nepal, and Pakistan perform at least as well as government schools on student test scores, and do so at significantly lower costs to society – though outcomes vary enormously within both sectors, and many weak private schools exist alongside strong public ones.

The challenge of access: millions still out of school 🔗

Despite decades of progress, the access problem in SAARC countries remains severe. Millions of school-age children are not in any classroom, and the burden falls most heavily on specific groups: girls, children from poor rural households, ethnic minorities, and children with disabilities.

Pakistan’s condition is particularly concerning – school enrollment and literacy rates are both extremely low, with approximately a quarter of Pakistan’s children not enrolled in school. Pakistan is home to more than half of South Asia’s over 20 million out-of-school children of primary and lower secondary age. In India, the sheer scale of the population means that even a small percentage of out-of-school children translates into tens of millions of individuals. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka present a contrasting picture: both countries have made remarkable strides in raising enrollment and, in Bangladesh’s case, achieving near gender parity at the primary level.

Geographic barriers are a major part of the problem. In the mountainous regions of Nepal and Bhutan, children may need to walk for hours to reach the nearest school – making regular attendance practically impossible for many families. In rural Balochistan and Sindh in Pakistan, physical distance from schools compounds the effects of poverty and cultural barriers to girls’ education. UNICEF notes that even when children do reach classrooms across South Asia, the learning experience is often deeply inadequate – with teacher-centered instruction focused on memorization rather than the development of foundational reading, writing, and numeracy skills that children need to progress.

The enrollment surge: real progress, real limits 🔗

The expansion of school enrollment across SAARC countries over the past several decades represents one of the region’s most significant social transformations. Between 1950 and 1997, school enrollments in South Asia increased sixfold, from 44 million to 262 million, while the adult illiteracy rate fell from 72% in 1960 to 46% in 2000. That momentum has continued into the 21st century, driven by a combination of government policy, international commitments, and changing social attitudes toward the value of education.

Several specific interventions have powered this surge. India’s Midday Meal Scheme provides free lunches to school children, making attendance more economically attractive for poor families while addressing nutritional needs simultaneously. Cash transfer programs in Bangladesh and Pakistan have provided direct financial incentives for families to keep children – particularly girls – in school rather than pulling them into the workforce or household labor. UNICEF builds regional partnerships with the public and private sector to bolster commitments and accountability to ensure every child is learning, supporting early childhood education programs and teacher training across the region.

The progress in girls’ education has been especially notable. Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in primary education and is approaching it at the secondary level – a transformation that reflects both policy effort and shifting cultural norms. Female teacher recruitment programs, girls’ stipend schemes, and the construction of separate school facilities have helped boost girls’ enrollment across Pakistan, though gains remain uneven between urban and rural areas.

The dropout crisis: when enrollment isn’t enough 🔗

Getting children into school is only the first step. Keeping them there – and ensuring they actually learn – is where SAARC education systems continue to struggle most seriously. Dropout and repetition rates across the region are high, and completion rates in primary education in South Asia are the lowest in the world.

The reasons children leave school are deeply interconnected with the broader conditions of poverty and inequality that define life in much of the region. Economic pressure is the most common driver – families facing hardship pull children out to work, earn income, or care for younger siblings. For girls specifically, early marriage remains a significant barrier, particularly in rural Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. In South Asia, poor-quality education systems, with limited resources and teacher shortages, compound the problem at the classroom level – when children find school irrelevant or experience persistent failure, dropout becomes more likely.

Infrastructure deficits also play a direct role. The number of pupils per teacher in primary schools is as high as 59 in Bangladesh, 49 in Pakistan, and 48 in India – class sizes that make individualized support for struggling learners virtually impossible. Inadequate sanitation facilities, particularly the lack of separate toilets for girls, is one of the most consistently documented reasons adolescent girls stop attending secondary school across the region.

The consequences of this dropout crisis extend well beyond individual children. When large numbers of children leave school before completing primary education, the foundational human capital that drives economic development and social mobility is lost. UNICEF describes this as South Asia’s learning crisis – a situation made worse by COVID-19 school closures that disrupted years of progress and from which many children are still recovering. The challenge, as UNICEF frames it, is not only getting children through the school gate but ensuring they are genuinely learning once inside.

Education spending and the funding gap 🔗

Underpinning many of these challenges is a persistent shortfall in public investment. Despite some growth in educational funding in the early 21st century, spending in SAARC countries has declined in recent years, leaving the region’s systems chronically under-resourced. Countries like Bangladesh demonstrate a paradox: it has achieved greater literacy and enrollment rates than the regional average despite having some of the lowest educational investment levels in the region. This reflects the important contributions of NGOs and community-based initiatives that supplement what government budgets cannot cover.

For the region as a whole, bridging the funding gap will require not only increased domestic budget allocations but stronger accountability for how existing funds are used. Corruption in education financing – the diversion of funds intended for school construction, teacher salaries, or textbooks – undermines system performance in several SAARC countries. Multilateral organizations including the World Bank and UNICEF have been important sources of external support, but sustainable progress ultimately depends on governments making education a genuine fiscal priority.

Bright spots and the road ahead 🔗

The education landscape across SAARC nations is not a uniform story of failure. Sri Lanka and Maldives have achieved near-universal literacy and high primary enrollment rates that are genuinely impressive by any global standard. Bangladesh’s success in closing the gender gap in primary education has been recognized internationally as a model for other developing nations. Community-driven innovations – from Nepal’s locally managed schools to mobile education programs serving nomadic populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan – show that locally rooted solutions can reach children that centralized systems miss.

Public-private partnerships are creating new models for educational delivery across South Asia, combining government resources with private-sector efficiency and NGO community connections. Technology is increasingly part of the picture too, from radio-based learning programs in remote areas to digital infrastructure investments in India. The region’s enormous youth population – a demographic dividend, if realized – makes getting education right not just a moral imperative but an economic necessity.

The central lesson from across the SAARC region is that enrollment numbers, while important, are an incomplete measure of educational progress. The real goal is learning – equipping every child with the foundational skills and knowledge they need to build a productive, dignified life. Reaching that goal requires addressing not just access, but quality, equity, teacher training, infrastructure, and the deep structural poverty that pulls children out of classrooms before their education is complete.

What do you think? Given that NGOs and private providers now serve a significant share of students across SAARC countries, should these actors have a more formal role in shaping national education policy – and what risks might that bring? With poverty identified as the primary driver of school dropout across the region, is it realistic to expect education systems alone to solve the attendance and completion crisis without broader economic and social reforms?

References

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288234521_Prospects_and_Challenges_in_Implementing_Inclusive_Education_Reform_in_Saarc_Countries
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10556599/
3. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pad.420
4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057920902750491
5. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/18786?show=full
6. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000383517
7. https://www.unicef.org/rosa/what-we-do/education
8. https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2434/South-Asia.html