Higher and More Effective Spending on Education and Health The worrying finding is that despite faster growth in real education spending after 2009­10, the impact on enrollment rate has been lower. The Net Enrollment Rate increased by 7, 17 and 13 percent by level of education in the earlier period. However, the rate of improvement declined to 4, 3 and 3 percent respectively in the latter period. This reinforces concerns about the efficiency of public education spending in recent years. A third piece of evidence is the substitution of public institutions by private institutions in enrollment. As shown above in Table 26.8 above the share of enrollment in the latter institutions has expanded rapidly. Table 26.8: Share of Private Institutions in Enrollment –(%) 2009-10 2017-18 Primary 31.8 36.3 This has exacerbated the risk of a‘dual’ education system with significantly higher Middle High 33.3 35.6 31.0 31.5 quality in private schools versus public Degree Colleges 13.0 24.6 schools. This tends to become the root Universities 14.4 19.6 cause of lifetime income inequality. Also, Source: AEPAM there is evidence of profiteering through high fees by owners of private institutions. The bottom line is the consequential impact on the unit cost of public education. This is examined first by relating the growth in inputs of the teachers and schools compared with the growth in output in the form of enrollments. This analysis is undertaken in Table 26.9. Table 26.9: Annual Growth Rate in Public Education Inputs and Outputs by Level of Education 2009-10 to 2017-18 Growth Rate(%) Growth in Inputs(Number) Schools Teachers Composite Input* (i) Growth in Enrollment (ii) Difference Between(ii) and(i) Primary-1.8 0.8-0.8 1.0 1.8 Middle 0.8 1.5 1.2 1.7 0.5 Secondary 3.4 3.6 3.5 3.4-0.1 Colleges 5.6 6.8 6.3 5.4-1.1 Universities 5.2-2.4 0.6 6.5 5.9 *weight of teachers is 0.6 and that of schools is 0.4 Source: AEPAM, Pakistan Education Statistics There are some important findings from Table 26.9. First, the number of public primary schools has contracted between 2009-10 and 2017-18 by 13 percent. The number of schools closed is 18,042. There is a need for investigation of the causes of these closures as to whether it is due to shortage of teachers, competition from private schools or other 269