GAWE 2023: Decolonizing Education Financing

To commemorate GAWE 2023, on the year the global campaign completed two decades, PCE ran a nationwide campaign on the theme Decolonizing Education Financing, in May 2023, involving key education-sector stakeholders across twelve districts: seven in Punjab (Dera Ghazi Khan, Hafizabad, Layyah, Khanewal, Muzaffargarh, Nankana, and Rajanpur), two in Sindh (Ghotki and Keamari), two in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Swabi and Buner), and the Federal Territory. Its primary goal was to document and highlight the diverse challenges of education financing at the grassroots level, with a special emphasis on the disability inclusiveness and gender responsiveness of budget allocation and expenditure. Alongside this, the campaign set out to instil a culture of social accountability in local communities, empowering them to take part in decision-making and fostering greater responsibility among local authorities. The information it gathered fed directly into the demands that shaped PCE's subsequent electoral advocacy.

Objectives

• To identify and address the key challenges and barriers to equitable education financing at the grassroots level.

• To mainstream the problems faced by girls and marginalised groups in accessing quality education.

• To inculcate the practices of social accountability among the people.

Activities: The campaign ran through three activities:

• Focus Group Discussions: Representatives from district education departments, school management committees, PAGE members, CSOs, parents, and teachers were brought into meaningful dialogue, exchanging ideas and experiences on the challenges of education financing and producing recommendations that were passed on to local administrative bodies. Officials from the education departments made commitments to comply with the recommendations in future policy.

• Budget Tracking Activity. Member organisations and PAGE members gathered data on budget allocation for FY 2022-23 at the district level. The very act of demanding this data helped build social accountability, and it exposed a startling gap: district education departments held no records on the enrolment of transgender, disabled, or other minority children, and the budgets carried no separate heads for girls or minorities.

• Banner Placing Activity. Banners endorsing an increase in the education budget, to at least 15 to 20 percent, were placed in public spaces across the districts, outside government schools, district education offices, courts, town squares, parks, and markets, drawing the attention of passers-by and building public awareness and curiosity.

Major themes identified

• Inclusivity and accessibility. Participants stressed the need for safe, supportive learning environments that accept diversity and meet the needs of all children, and called for extending access to disabled and transgender children through changes in teaching methods and infrastructure. The complete absence of recorded data on transgender enrolment was named as the single biggest hurdle to getting these children into school.

• Budget allocation and disbursement. Participants pressed for a substantial increase in the school budget, built around the needs expressed by school management committees, with greater autonomy for SMCs and teachers to spend according to their schools' realities, and timely disbursement of funds.

• Concerns about girls' education. Participants noted that dropout rates rise as girls get older, driven by the lack of appropriate facilities and washrooms, the absence of any specific budget allocations for girls, and the insecurity many girls feel simply commuting to school.

Recommendations

1. Increase the education budget by 15 to 20 percent, with funds allocated to the specific needs of each school (student population, infrastructure condition, and resources required).

2. Make the budget-allocation mechanism transparent, as a means to ensure accountability and the equal distribution of funds.

3. Solicit input from School Management Committees, PAGE, and other relevant stakeholders in the budget-formulation process.

4. Adopt gender-responsive teaching practices, including teacher training, to promote equality and create safer, more inclusive environments for girls, transgender students, and children with disabilities.

5. Allocate dedicated funds for the needs of marginalised groups, including children with disabilities, girls, and transgender children.

Commitments. Officials made commitments to carry the recommendations into future policy. Among them, Wajiha Qamar (MNA and Ambassador for Girls' Education at MoFEPT) volunteered to spearhead a door-to-door enrolment campaign in rural Islamabad; Muhammad Bilal Abbasi (CEO Education, Rajanpur) committed to improving the standard of education in his district; Inayatullah (Taluka Education Officer, Ghotki) promised to take the recommendations to every school under his jurisdiction; and Syed Muhammad Asif Naqvi (CEO, DG Khan) urged the Punjab government to notify the Punjab Free and Compulsory Education Act 2014 and to increase development budgets for public schools, especially for girls.

Download/ Read the full report: Global Action Week for Education 2023, Achievements and Reflections (Decolonizing Education Financing).