Devolution of Power: Impact Assessment on Primary Education

Abstract

Devolution of power in Pakistan had been awaited since long. The old colonial system of governing from the top had failed to deliver and the services at local level had been deteriorating. There was a general feeling that the incapacity of the system to respond to the development needs is due to non-participation of the local community in the decision-making. Education amongst the other services had been affected badly since the inception of the country despite several attempts to formulate, review and implement newer policies at various intervals. It has been hoped that the service delivery will improve with the promulgation of Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 2001, which for the first time introduced a shift of paradigm to manage local government system with active participation of the community. The aim of this study is to explore whether the new governance model has made any positive impact on primary education, which now rests with the local governments. The research for the study is exploratory cum descriptive and qualitative in nature. The primary data has been collected in the field through discussions and interviews of the stakeholders on a pre-set questionnaire. Mostly, the data is qualitative in nature. However, the author has tried to analyze the data through descriptive statistical methods. Pie charts and bar charts have been applied for data interpretation to arrive at the result of the study.