ESED’s district ranking improves edu service delivery

F.P. Report

Peshawar: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary & Secondary Education Department (E&SED) has compiled the results of District Performance Evaluation System (DPES) for November 2017.

The E&SED with support of DFID introduced DPES in September 2017, a quantitative index which calculates a score for districts based on a set of educational indicators which includes student learning outcomes through 5th & 10th grade results, students’ attendance rate, progress on development projects in schools, increase in students’ enrolment, provision of textbooks to students, percentage of provision of stipends, delivery of furniture, optimal students-teacher ratio and teachers’ attendance in schools.

The objective of DPES is to assess district performance on key education indicators in line with education sector plan and to introduce a reward mechanism for better performance. Every month, the KP E&SED conducts district ranking and the best performing districts are rewarded while the worst performing districts are penalized.

According to the recent results, 15 districts have improved their performance compared to the first ranking held in December. Kohat and Swabi are the leading districts which significantly improved their performance. Similarly, enrolment rate has increased from 3.4% to 5%, Teachers’ attendance improved by 2% in the province with 5% improvement in six districts. Additionally, there was a 4% improvement recorded in number of schools with all basic school facilities. Districts with highest improvements in provision of school facilities in November are Torghar 16%, Lakki 16%, Tank 12% and Peshawar 12%. Likewise, districts with exceptional improvement along functional PTCs are Mardan 32%, Charsadda 27%, Hangu 21% and Swabi 20%.

The ranking for November 2017 shows Lakki as the top performing district for consecutive second time with an overall score of 77.23%, followed by Swabi with 76.29%, Dir Lower with 76.03%, Malakand with 75.72% and Bannu with 75.65%. Similarly, in terms of worst performing districts, Kohistan continued to be ranked at the lowest with a score of 56.36% followed by Peshawar with 63.44% and Shangla with 64.52%.

The E&SE has formed a committee under the supervision of Additional Secretary Suhail Khan which reports to the Secretary E&SE Dr. Fakhre Alam on a regular basis.

“This is for the second time, we are conducting District Performance Evaluation which we started in December. DPES is not only helping us to expedite progress on key indicators of Education Sector Plan, but it is also identifying areas where more efforts are required.

We are focusing on lowest performing districts and making sure their performance is improved. At present, 14 Districts have improved their performance compared to the first DPES results in December,” Suhail Khan, Additional Secretary E&SE said. “These Key Performance Indicators will help in accountability of District Education staff,” he added.