Civil society is a key stakeholder when it comes to education planning and implementation in Pakistan. However, many CSO’s lack the capacity to engage with the government and exercise accountability, and this continues to challenge the efforts made to strengthen the education system. 

Through this project, Institute of Social and Political Sciences (I-SAPS) will continue to address a gap of transparency and accountability of authorities.

The Reframing Education Accountability in Pakistan (REAP) project is to a large extend building on the efforts made in the previous project phase between July 2021 - December 2023. The current phase will deepen the engagement of the project in existing districts as well as explore the possibilities of extending the efforts to an additional four districts.  

The aim of the project is to strengthen the capacity of civil society to effectively engage with the government and participate in promoting policy solutions that are compatible with local reality. Simultaneously, the project will continue to work on creating a space where government officials welcome the enhanced role of civil society in improving education.

The approach of the REAP initiative involves: 

• Producing data and evidence that civil society can use for constructive dialogue with government officials for improving education. 

• Training civil society to analyse and use data for better accountability, transparency, and policy influencing. 

• Creating networks of civil society organisations to monitor, guide, and inform education management. 

• Organising dialogues at the national and sub-national levels for facilitating interface between communities and government. 

• Enabling government officials to effectively engage and respond to citizens’ demands for improving education. 

More specifically, the new phase of the project will focus on: 

• A systems approach for multilevel engagement and accountability to engage districts and sub-districts, as most policy decisions impacting the access and quality of education service delivery are made at provincial level. 

• Emphasising quality and outcome indicators in evidence generation, such as learning achievements, learning environments, and retention and transition in schools. 

• Building the capacity of civil society networks to independently collect and analyse data, and leverage it for accountability. 

• Involve the civil society in end-to-end monitoring of government processes. 

• Carry out non-partisan engagement and accountability to make education a political priority in the upcoming elections.  

To ensure longevity, the sustainability strategy of the project entails engaging with public representatives, government officials, and local education groups to gather their support and draw on their expertise and experiences. To ensure the sustainability of social accountability the project will make sure that the civil society networks are embedded and institutionalised in education policy, planning, and service delivery. 

An earlier phase of the REAP initiative was carried out between July 2021 - December 2023. The current project is part of the EOL extension phase of 2024-2026. Read more about the first phase of the project here.