The provincial capital of the province of Punjab – Lahore, has become one of the worst-performing districts in the province in public schooling and has slid to the 27th position, among the other 36 districts of Punjab.
According to the 4th quarterly ranking of districts & divisions for 2018-19 for April and March 2019, Lahore has been ranked at the 27th position sliding down from its previous spot of 18. The quarterly district ranking is based on 14 different indicators and ranks each district accordingly. This quarterly ranking is based on the data of two months as opposed to three months.
Lahore did surprisingly poorly in student attendance and retention this quarter. For both the indicators, the provincial capital was ranked 35th place, just above Khushab in student attendance and above Dera Ghazi Khan for retention.
Other indicators for the provincial capital are also not very encouraging. For the literacy and numeracy drive (LND), Lahore has been ranked at the 23rd place, whereas for the availability of drinking water, it has been ranked 21st place. Non-salary budget utilization has also been a problem for the capital city public schools and it has been ranked 32nd place among the 36 districts for it. For sufficiency of toilets and school hygiene, Lahore has been ranked at the 16th and 11th places respectively.
Overall rankings
For the overall ranking of the districts of the province, Kasur has maintained its first position from the previous ranking. Sargodha climbed to second place from its previous spot of 8, Nankana Sahib also climbed to the third position from its previous quarter’s 10th place. Bhakkar has been ranked at the 4th position from its previous 14th place and Chakwal at 5th place descending from its previous quarter’s 2nd place.
The five worst-performing districts this quarter were Narowal, Rahim Yar Khan, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalnagar and Dera Ghazi Khan at 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th and 36th places respectively.
For the ranking of divisions, Lahore division ranked surprisingly well despite the district ranking poorly and was ranked in the first spot. Sargodha was ranked at second place, Multan has been given the third position, Rawalpindi fourth, Gujranwala sixth, Faisalabad seventh, Sahiwal eighth, Bahawalpur ninth and Dera Ghazi Khan has ranked at the tenth and last place.
By: Ammar Sheikh