The focus of this study has been principally to examine the models of education practiced in non-governmental/civil society setups for the marginalized’/’excluded’ children with the intention of distinguishing innovative practices that can be replicated within the public education system (formal and non-formal). The CSO component of the private sector has moved for innovation and adaptation along 4 dimensions- i.e. access, retention and relevance and sustainability -cognizant of a heterogeneous composition of the student population along socio-economic backgrounds. The public schooling system has struggled to deliver in the 4 dimensions that underpin weak schooling histories for working children and the girl child, for reasons ranging from lack of grassroots reach; funding limitations; lack of political will; lack of policy innovation to inability to maintain a monitoring role.
Diagnostically then, the problems infesting the education sector in Pakistan are largely problems of inequity. Dichotomies between the public and private education disabuse the former’s clients of any notion of participation in the burgeoning formal economy while the clients of the private education system are primed from the elementary level to meet the market demand of the country. The educational outcome of such instruments is the emergence of groups of marginalized children, tangential to education systems, both public and private. In the given context it is appropriate to couch policy recommendations within a dualist framework that discriminate public practices from private practices in education accommodating the needs of disadvantaged children. The purpose is to outline particular intervention points within the decentralization framework for the bidirectional transfer of learnings along the public-private sector nexus along the axis of financing, access, relevance and a teacher focused approach to retention.
