Deconstructing Pakistan’s education policy within the Gender and Development Framework

This thesis makes a case for education policies in Pakistan that take into account the diverse needs of its populace with regard to girls’ education across different locales and contexts within provinces. Using the Gender and Development (GAD) framework, it assesses whether education policies in Pakistan address the barriers to girls’ education, as expressed by communities in a customized and gender-sensitive manner. It found that provincial governments are addressing community expressed barriers to girls’ education in an incomplete and inconsistent manner. While they have displayed an understanding of these issues, there remains much scope for improvement and a deeper and long-term commitment to girls’ education is required to achieve gender parity at the primary level of schooling.