PAKISTAN’S education emergency is measured through attendance: out-of-school numbers dominate every plan. The Economic Survey 2025-26 reports that the proportion of out-of-school children fell from 38 per cent in 2023 to 28 per cent in 2025, with Balochistan declining from 69 per cent to 45. The gain matters, though the Bureau of Statistics, releasing the same survey in January, recorded the fall as from 30 per cent to 28 — nearer two points than ten. The Annual Status of Education Report 2025 puts the proportion below ten, though its coverage and methodology differ. The instruments do not agree. Enrolment, however counted, is an incomplete measure of inclusion. It records that a child crossed the threshold, not the condition of arrival. A child in Rajanpur receives a milk pack at mid-morning; in most Punjab districts no child does — the register cannot tell them apart.

That condition was last measured in 2018, when the National Nutrition Survey found 40.2 per cent of children under five stunted — later costings use 34 — 17.7 per cent wasted, above the emergency threshold of 15 and 53.7 per cent anaemic. That cohort now fills primary and middle classrooms. Household hunger, by contrast, is measured and worsening: the January survey found nearly a quarter of households in moderate or severe food insecurity, above 30 per cent in Balochistan and rising in Punjab from 14.4 per cent to 22.6. The deprivation is current; the instrument for locating it in a classroom is eight years........

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