While much of the world continues debating how to make education accessible, affordable and inclusive, Punjab has delivered one of the most extraordinary educational transformations of recent times. In just two years, 4,014,219 deserving children have been brought into free classrooms through the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), a milestone that many developing countries have struggled to achieve over decades. Far from being an ordinary administrative accomplishment, this represents a powerful model of how political commitment, public-private partnership and focused governance can transform the lives of millions within a remarkably short period.

This is not a promise or a target. It is a reality already unfolding across 20 thousand partnering schools in all 41 districts of Punjab and the world should pay attention.

The Punjab Education Foundation, established with the mission of removing financial barriers between needy children and learning, built its success on an insight that seems simple in hindsight but proved elusive for generations of policymakers: the infrastructure already exists.

Across Punjab’s villages, remote districts and underserved urban neighbourhoods, low-cost private schools were already operating modestly,........

© Pakistan Observer