Out of School Children are now 5 million and NOT 25 million : based on ASER data 2025

ASER has been doing education related surveys for almost 2 decades.

The exercise is supported by host of international donors. Its launched recently by Secretary of Education in Islamabad.

Some thing that has gone un noticed though is that the report suggests out of school children in 6 to 16 age group is now less than 8 % . To quote specifically the report says :

‘ The findings on access are encouraging. Enrollment levels are high, with 92.2 percent of children aged 6–16 in school and only 7.7 percent out of school.’

The same report provides us a table which shows that 6 to 16 age group has around 66 million boys and girls. So using their numbers the out of school population is now 5 million and NOT 25 million.

It is surprising that this has not been noticed or published any where.

Are we only interested in data when it shows we are doing bad?

The data is surprising to me as well. Census 2023 and PSLM surveys show less positive development (though they also have been consistenly showing major improvement).

The ASER 2025 as their report says is a major improvement in methodology. The sampling work was done by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and Chief Statistician for whom i have great respect Naeem Zafar was present at the launch ceremony .

We need to have more open discussion on data sets both when they show grim statistics but also when they dont.