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November 8, 2026

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Education & Life

26.2 million children out of school: what Pakistan’s biggest education research programme found

Faizan Altaf

At a glance

  • What happened: Pakistan’s largest education research programme, DARE-RC, brought researchers and experts from around the world to Lahore this weekend for its International Education Summit 2026 at the LUMS School of Education, to share the findings of 44 studies on how to fix the country’s education system.
  • Why it matters: The research puts hard numbers on a crisis that affects millions of families: 26.2 million children in Pakistan are out of school, more than half of them girls, and children with disabilities are almost invisible in official data.
  • What happens next: Researchers say the evidence points to practical first steps — clean water, private washrooms, and enrolment rules that do not shut out children displaced by floods — and the challenge now is turning promises such as the Islamabad Declaration on Girls’ Education into action.

Pakistan has 26.2 million children out of school. More than half of them — 53 percent — are girls. Those two numbers, shared at a major education summit in Lahore this weekend, sum up the scale of the challenge facing the country’s classrooms. But the researchers behind the numbers say they also show where to start fixing it.

The Data and Research in Education Research Consortium, known as DARE-RC, is Pakistan’s largest research programme in education. Over recent years it has carried out 44 studies looking at ways to improve the country’s education system, from teaching and school leadership to climate resilience, governance and accountability. Its largest group of studies focuses on the barriers that keep marginalised children out of school.

This weekend, 31 October to 1 November, DARE-RC hosted its International Education Summit 2026 with the School of Education at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Experts from Pakistan and around the world gathered to discuss how to turn the research evidence into action.

The timing matters. New figures from the United Nations Development Programme show that 38 percent of Pakistan’s population lives in multidimensional poverty — meaning they face overlapping disadvantages in health, nutrition, living standards and education, not just low income. As the economist Mahbub-ul Haq, who helped create the UNDP’s way of measuring human development, once said: “People are the real wealth of a nation.” The summit’s message was that Pakistan’s development will rest on whether it can educate its citizens — especially those too often neglected: women and girls, children in rural poverty, and children with disabilities.

Girls only need half a chance

One of the summit’s clearest findings concerns girls. Again and again, girls outperform boys in Pakistan’s most stressful examination — the Higher Secondary School Certificate. The problem is not ability. It is opportunity. Of the 26.2 million out-of-school children in Pakistan, 53 percent are girls.

The national average hides a much starker story at the local level. In Jati Tehsil, in Sujawal district of Sindh, 91 percent of girls are out of school, compared with 34 percent of boys. Behind that gap, DARE-RC researchers found a mix of problems on both sides of the school gate.

On the supply side — what schools themselves offer — families want schools close to home, journeys that are safe, and female teachers in the classroom. Girls also drop out of schools that lack basic facilities for their privacy and hygiene. Researchers repeatedly heard the need for clean and private washrooms with running water. In some areas, girls were reported to miss three or four days of school a month, especially in extreme heat, when schools lacked the facilities to help them manage their menstrual health.

On the demand side — what families decide — parents are heavily influenced by safety concerns, affordability and the views of the society around them. That calculation can shift sharply in a disaster. Researchers tracked children who were forced to move when climate change-driven floods hit their area. One girl from Qubo Saeed Khan, who had been forced to relocate to New Sindh-abad, was kept at home by her parents, who worried about her safety in the new city — while her two brothers were allowed to attend school.

Vulnerable child migrants, including children from religious minorities and the children of seasonal labourers, also faced barriers from an inflexible system. When their new school demanded birth-registration forms or identity documents to enrol them, families who had lost their papers in a flood had no way to comply.

There is no quick fix to getting girls into school, the researchers say. But the evidence shows where to start: clean water, a private washroom, and enrolment rules that do not punish children whose homes have been flooded.

The children the data cannot see

A second group is often forgotten by the system altogether: children with disabilities. Part of the problem is that they are largely invisible in official data, so it is hard to plan services for children the system cannot count.

The United Nations estimates that one in ten children worldwide has some form of disability. A survey by University of Cambridge researchers in 2018 similarly estimated that more than 11 percent of Pakistani children may have a disability. Yet Pakistan’s 2023 Census recorded just 3.1 percent of Pakistanis as having a disability — 9.6 percent with some functional limitation — and the national disability registry run by NADRA covers fewer than 0.3 percent of the population.

DARE-RC researchers did find some good news. For the first time, from 2023, the Annual School Census — a survey built from self-reported data from every school in the country — has included questions on disability. Schools were asked to identify how many of their students have difficulties with their eyesight, hearing, mobility or cognition. The bad news is that the numbers still look too low: 90 percent of schools report that they have no children with any functional difficulty at all.

Researchers found that schools still need more support to really understand what the survey questions are asking, and education departments need to analyse the causes of under-reporting more carefully. As the summit heard, lessons like these may seem technical, but they help to shine a light on the issues in the education system that most urgently need attention — and guide what action is needed.

The human cost of that invisibility is easy to picture. At the SMB Fatima Jinnah Government Girls School in Karachi, run jointly by the government and Shehzad Roy’s Zindagi Trust, there is both a doctor and an optician on site. Children line up for tests to help them get the glasses or hearing aid they need. Not all children in Pakistan are so fortunate. “When I sit at the back,” one girl with a hearing impairment told DARE-RC researchers in Punjab, “I can’t hear the teacher, and then I feel very bad.”

A crisis measured in more than enrolment

The summit’s findings sit alongside other recent evidence about the state of education in Pakistan. A Planning Commission evaluation found that none of the 134 districts assessed reached the highest performance category for education, and that 28 percent of children aged 5 to 16 are out of school nationwide — ranging from 21 percent in Punjab to 45 percent in Balochistan, according to a report in Dawn in October.

A separate government report, “Public Financing in Education 2025-26”, released by the Pakistan Institute of Education, found that 25.37 million children are out of school and that nearly 77 percent of ten-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple sentence. Education spending has remained below two percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product for years, and preliminary estimates suggest it could fall to 0.8 percent in 2024-25.

The problems do not end at the school gate. Only seven percent of Pakistani youth receive formal technical and vocational training, far below the regional average of 22 percent, according to Dawn. The World Bank estimates that the skills gap costs the economy about 31.5 billion US dollars a year in lost productivity and missed export opportunities. Nearly one in three Pakistanis aged 15 to 29 is neither employed nor in education or training — and among young women, more than half fall into that category. Unemployment among graduates stands at 18.3 percent, and among graduates aged 20 to 24 it reaches 32.8 percent, according to Gallup Pakistan’s analysis of the Labour Force Survey 2024-25.

These figures explain why the summit matters beyond the world of researchers. Education is not only about classrooms. It shapes whether young people can find work, whether families can escape poverty, and whether the economy can grow. In the twentieth century, the rapid economic rise of countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan was built on a foundation of basic education and gender equality. Pakistan’s researchers argue the same path is open — if the country invests in it.

From evidence to action

So what happens now? The summit’s organisers say the research points to practical steps, not grand promises. Clean water and private washrooms in schools. Female teachers where families ask for them. Enrolment rules that accept children who have lost their documents in floods. Better training so that schools can identify children with disabilities and report them accurately. None of these are impossible demands.

There are also signs of political intent. The Islamabad Declaration on Girls’ Education, for example, shows a commitment to improving the outcomes of girls and women in Pakistan and across the Islamic world. The challenge, as the summit heard, is to turn such intentions into action — and to keep funding and attention on the children who are hardest to reach.

DARE-RC is funded by UK International Development from the UK Government, and its work is led by Oxford Policy Management together with its consortium partners. The summit at LUMS is part of a wider effort to make sure research does not sit on a shelf, but reaches the people who run schools and make policy.

For parents, the message from Lahore is both sobering and hopeful. Sobering, because the numbers confirm that millions of children — above all girls and children with disabilities — are still being left behind. Hopeful, because after 44 studies, researchers say they now know far more about exactly what keeps those children out, and what would bring them in. The real wealth of a nation, Mahbub-ul Haq argued, is its people. The summit’s work is about making sure every child counts towards it.

Frequently asked questions

What is DARE-RC?

DARE-RC stands for the Data and Research in Education Research Consortium. It is Pakistan’s largest research programme in education, funded by UK International Development from the UK Government and led by Oxford Policy Management with its consortium partners. It has carried out 44 studies on improving teaching, school leadership, climate resilience, governance and accountability, and the barriers that exclude marginalised children.

How many children are out of school in Pakistan?

According to the research shared at the DARE-RC International Education Summit 2026, 26.2 million children in Pakistan are out of school, and 53 percent of them are girls. A separate government report by the Pakistan Institute of Education put the figure at 25.37 million, while a Planning Commission evaluation found that 28 percent of children aged 5 to 16 are out of school.

Why do so many girls miss school in Pakistan?

Researchers found a mix of reasons. Schools are often far from home, journeys feel unsafe, and there are too few female teachers. Many schools lack clean, private washrooms with running water, and girls in some areas miss three or four days of school a month because schools cannot support their menstrual health. Families also weigh safety, cost and social attitudes — and in disasters such as floods, girls are often the first to be kept home.

Why are children with disabilities missing from the data?

The United Nations estimates one in ten children worldwide has a disability, and a 2018 Cambridge University survey estimated more than 11 percent of Pakistani children may have one. But the 2023 Census recorded only 3.1 percent of Pakistanis as having a disability, and the NADRA disability registry covers fewer than 0.3 percent. Since 2023, the Annual School Census has asked schools about disability, yet 90 percent of schools report having no children with any functional difficulty — a figure researchers say is far too low and shows schools need more support to answer the questions accurately.

What is the Islamabad Declaration on Girls’ Education?

It is a declaration showing political intent to improve the education outcomes of girls and women in Pakistan and across the Islamic world. Researchers at the summit said the challenge now is to turn such declarations into concrete action on the ground.

Where was the summit held?

The DARE-RC International Education Summit 2026 was held at the LUMS School of Education in Lahore on 31 October and 1 November 2026, bringing together experts from Pakistan and around the world.

Conclusion

The DARE-RC summit in Lahore did not offer a single answer to Pakistan’s education crisis, because there is not one. What it offered instead is something more useful: 44 studies’ worth of evidence about which children are being left out, why, and what would help them back in. The headline numbers are stark — 26.2 million children out of school, more than half of them girls, and children with disabilities barely counted at all. But the solutions the research points to are strikingly practical: water, washrooms, safe journeys, female teachers, and enrolment rules that work for families uprooted by floods. If Pakistan acts on that evidence, the summit will have been worth far more than two days of discussion. The country’s real wealth is its people — and every child kept out of school is wealth left uncounted.

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

Sources

Faizan Altaf

Faizan Altaf is the founder and author of findivoza.com, a news blog covering world, Pakistan, business, technology, health and sport in plain English. He writes for general readers who want clear, trustworthy news without jargon. His work focuses on explaining what happened, why it matters, and what to watch next.

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