Last month in Islamabad, the DFID-funded education programme Alif Ailaan asked an important question: "Who gets the good jobs?" The aptly titled report collaboration between Alif Ailaan and the Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE) - reaffirms the conventional notions of social inequities; that those in high places today attended elite schools.

First, the scope and parameters; the study was conducted in the three major cities - Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad - and spanned some 800 employees of 100 different companies. The middle and upper level management was surveyed, and a person's starting salary was used as a metric for how 'good' an individual's job is.

The schools were divided into five types: low- and top-tier government schools and low-, mid-, and top-tier private schools. The level of education was kept up until secondary level - i.e. A Levels/Intermediate.

There were plenty of findings, and BR Research will not attempt to summarize all of them (the report is available online). A few of them, however, are as follows: Firstly, it was found that there is virtually no difference between private low-tier institutions and government low-tier institutions in terms of future employment opportunities/salary. This challenges the notion that such private schools are superior to public schools. That being said, however, there is an obvious difference between private top-tier schools and government top-tier schools in this regard.

Secondly, the salary of those individuals that did O levels is more than twice than those that did Matric, and the same holds true for A-level and Intermediate.

Thirdly, education as a means of mobility for lower classes to move up the rungs of society is failing; 86 percent of low-tier primary students ended up in low-tier secondary schools, while 80 percent of elite primary students ended up in elite secondary institutions. As it turns out, the education system in Pakistan is "reproducing existing patterns of distribution of wealth and well-being."

Finally, exposure to the English language is identified as playing a central role to determining the salary levels of the individuals. This is in addition to the quantum of support they receive at home and at school.

When it came time for the panel to speak - including a motley crew of various corporate executives and employers - they revealed that their organizations do not make any distinctions between government-schooled and private-schooled individuals. Not only do most companies have their own entry tests (all five panellists said their organizations have some entry test), but they also focus on other criteria such as work ethic.

That being said, it can be argued that an individual's performance on these tests/interviews is determined by their primary schooling - an elite school means a superior education, which in turn means a better performance.

Nevertheless, kudos to Alif Ailaan for starting a dialogue, even if it isn't really saying anything new. The report itself opens with "The conclusions and findings in this report will not surprise anyone." Still, it casts light on the existing inequities in our education system and paves the way for further research and dialogue.

The big question now is what next. As this column noted (Read BR Research column "More of the same" published October 06, 2016), conferences, reports and seminars have been piling evidence upon evidence that all point to the same thing. It seems the economics community is beating a dead horse. What next, and how to fix this is a discourse that needs to be had, and pronto!

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