With 30% of more than 17 million primary school-age children not in school, and 35% of those who attend school unable to master single digit subtraction by Grade 3, the Prime Minister of Pakistan declared an education emergency. Each day, about one-quarter of the country’s teachers do not attend school, and thousands of schools are closed.

In response, the Pathways to School Success project seeks to increase on-time enrollment, retention, and performance of pre- and primary school-age girls and boys in disaster affected communities in the Sindh region of Pakistan. The program is using child-to-child approaches to develop academic and non-academic competencies focused on school readiness, social development, and disaster risk reduction.

AIR conducted a six-country evaluation of the pilot program that is the foundation for Pathways to School Success, and is now conducting an independent, formative evaluation of the program in Pakistan to understand the following:

• How well program implementation is aligned with the program’s intentions, and whether adaptations made after the launch have improved or detracted from effectiveness.
• The extent to which the program is reaching and meeting the needs of the intended beneficiaries, including relevance and cultural acceptability.
• Outcomes of school readiness, on-time enrollment, social development, and disaster risk reduction.

The evaluation will inform program development and set the stage for a more rigorous randomized, controlled trial. Pathways to School Success is funded by the Department for International Development from 2012-2015, overseen by the Child to Child Trust, and implemented by the Pakistan-based Teachers Resource Centre.