While much of the world continues debating how to make education accessible, affordable and inclusive, Punjab has delivered one of the most extraordinary educational transformations of recent times. In just two years, 4,014,219 deserving children have been brought into free classrooms through the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), a milestone that many developing countries have struggled to achieve over decades. Far from being an ordinary administrative accomplishment, this represents a powerful model of how political commitment, public-private partnership and focused governance can transform the lives of millions within a remarkably short period.
This is not a promise or a target. It is a reality already unfolding across 20 thousand partnering schools in all 41 districts of Punjab, and the world should pay attention.
The Punjab Education Foundation, established with the mission of removing financial barriers between needy children and learning, built its success on an insight that seems simple in hindsight but proved elusive for generations of policymakers: the infrastructure already exists. Across Punjab’s villages, remote districts and underserved urban neighbourhoods, low-cost private schools were already operating modestly, without state support. Rather than constructing new institutions from scratch, PEF partnered with these existing private schools, brought them into a structured accountability framework and funded them on a per-student basis. The result was a model that expanded at the speed of community trust rather than the pace of government construction.
The numbers that followed are historic. Total enrollment under PEF-supported programmes has approached over four million students – a figure that represents not merely administrative success but a fundamental shift in the relationship between the state and its most vulnerable citizens. For countless families who once believed that quality schooling was a privilege reserved for others, the PEF has made it a right.
Recognising that no curriculum, however well designed, can substitute for a motivated and supported teacher, reforms have addressed transparency, professional development and payment reliability across the partner school network.
What separates PEF from similar experiments elsewhere in the developing world is the rigour built into its expansion. Enrollment without learning is a hollow achievement, and PEF has been deliberate about ensuring the two move together. Independent quality assessments are conducted through the Punjab Examination Commission, with examinations held at separate government schools to prevent any manipulation of results. Crucially, these assessments are not ceremonial – they feed directly into school evaluations and future funding decisions. This test-linked financing model creates a system where resources follow outcomes, not intentions. It is a standard that many far wealthier education systems have struggled to apply consistently.
Teacher welfare has been treated with equal seriousness. Recognising that no curriculum, however well designed, can substitute for a motivated and supported teacher, reforms have addressed transparency, professional development and payment reliability across the partner school network. When teachers trust the system, classrooms function. When classrooms function, children learn. The logic is straightforward; the execution rarely is.
The acceleration of results over the past two years owes much to the political commitment of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, who has treated education not as a line item in a budget but as the foundational investment of governance itself. Under her leadership, the Punjab government committed approximately Rs25 billion to PEF partner schools in a single academic year, cleared all outstanding dues owed to institutions and restructured payment mechanisms to guarantee reliable disbursements. The record enrollment of 1.1 million new students in 2024-25 alone – the highest single-year intake in PEF’s history – followed directly from that restored institutional confidence.
Looking ahead, PEF’s expanding vision reflects a sharp awareness that access is only the beginning of what education must deliver. The children entering PEF-supported classrooms today will enter a global workforce shaped by artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation. In response, PEF has begun introducing technology laboratories in partner schools and launched excellence programmes for its highest-performing students, signalling that it understands the stakes extend well beyond enrollment figures. The goal is not simply to place children in schools. It is to place them on a trajectory toward genuine opportunity.
Behind every statistic in Punjab’s education story is a child, a family and a future that once seemed uncertain. Four million such futures are now being written in classrooms that were not available two years ago. That is the true measure of what PEF has accomplished and the most compelling argument for why the developing world should study this model with the urgency it deserves.
The writer is a Lahore-based public policy analyst and can be reached at [email protected]