Socio-economic Determinants of School Attendance of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Primary education is a key indicator of social and economic development. Since independence 1947, Pakistan has been facing the issue of low attendance rate at primary level. Pakistan has been working with international organizations like UNICEF for many years but unable to achieve the goal of universal primary education. Therefore, the present study focuses on this issue, and investigate the socio-economic determinants of school attendance of primary aged children (5-9 years) at Punjab. For this purpose, the study used MICS (Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey) 2014 as a data set, conducted by Punjab Bureau of Statistics with the selected sample of 31,466 children. The results of descriptive analysis suggest that children in general and girls in particular of Punjab are deprived of their basic right of education. For the regression analysis, Logistic Models are constructed for Punjab. The results of Logistic Model suggest that gender of child, area of residence, wealth quintiles, mother education, father education, gender of household head, age of a child and household size determine the school attendance. As compared to the other factors, the impact of household wealth (wealth quintiles) is found greater in this study. It suggests that large socioeconomic disparities exist in Punjab. Lastly, the study recommends some policies to increase school attendance that can ensure more educational budget for deprived areas in terms of school attendance, and how to utilize its educational budget e.g. incentives to poor households in the form of conditional cash transfers. However, Pakistan must spend standard 4 percent of its GDP on education for the enhancement of human capital in the long run.