Following the world declaration of commitment to the Dakar Framework for Action, National Action Plans were drawn up by countries pursuing EFA goals. In Pakistan too a National Action Plan was constructed followed by a Provincial Action Plan. Sindh’s provincial plan was also among the 4 that were created, followed by a District Action Plan for each of the districts of Sindh. Though the plans for Sindh and its individual districts were optimistic they managed to achieve very few tangible results.  

The gendered distribution of schools in Sindh reinforces the gender disparity against girls in primary education with only 46% of the villages in Sindh possessing a girl’s elementary school inside the village while 87% of the villages had a boy’s elementary school inside the village. In recent years, the Sindh government has taken efforts to subsidize education for the girl child by providing free textbooks to girls in rural areas. It is assessing the level of this activity in Pakistan through our special focus on Sindh that forms the premise of this study. A detailed examination of where Sindh stands with regard to meeting EFA goals, (with special attention on how far the province has reached in terms of meeting its quality education targets) will be critically evaluated.