Access – Recommendations: Ideally each school should possess a school development plan which should identify and implement infrastructural development of the school to a higher level in phases, thus making the SMC function more meaningful. The plan can be developed by a third party or an adopter as has been in the case of CSOs who adopt schools or carry out a need assessment analysis before obtaining consent from communities to operate in their areas.

Infrastructure – Recommendations: Female student retention pivots on safety points that find physical translation into the need for girl schools:

• to be based at walking distance from the homes

• to be equipped with toilets and boundary walls

• and to be staffed with female teachers

Recently there has been a formal statement emphasizing the hiring of female staff and in this regard there are certain successful examples for ensuring retention. The need thus is to move from capital intensive measures in education to people centered that are, manually intensive, to improve education outcomes.

Retention – Recommendations: In that regard the Fellowship Schools Program (FSP) has piloted a practice in Balochistan that by linking teacher attendance to remuneration it has ensured 94% attendance at the school level. To reiterate, the CSO practice of hiring local teachers and moreover local teachers, who can provide one room in their house to function as a school is also an effective measure in reducing absenteeism. Where such a practice cannot be implemented, it is imperative that the state bears the cost of transporting the teacher to and from the school premises.

 Relevance – Recommendations: Given the fact that local economies, particularly rural ones are heavily dependent on their surrounding environments, it is advisable to devolve certain components/subjects of the curriculum (at the district level) which should be set and developed by a local body to ensure that the curriculum is customized to the differential needs of children.