Alif Ailaan


Alif Ailaan was a nonprofit organization working in the field of education in Pakistan since 2013. Launched by a team of media and communications specialists, the program seeks to highlight education on priority basis in Pakistan and make the masses aware of the importance of education. It runs campaigns in print, on radio and television, and on social media for awareness of the masses about education. The program conducts seminars and surveys and publishes the highly cited district education rankings report. It also monitors the performance of parliamentarians in reforming education in their constituencies.
Working in the four provinces of Pakistan as well as Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and the formerly Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Alif Ailaan identifies the weak spots in education through research and aims to assist decision makers in creating and implementing better education policies.

Contributions

Alif Ailaan addresses the educational crisis in Pakistan and suggests measures to reform the education landscape. Through their research and data compilation, they assist decision makers to come up with. Funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, the organization also provides grant support to civil society organisations working for educational reforms and fund research on issues related to education in Pakistan.

District Education Rankings

Alif Ailaan also releases District Education Rankings for all districts of Pakistan on the basis of its research. The research examine the state of education in the country's 148 districts and agencies and identify the weak spots in education. According to District Education Rankings 2013, the Punjab was on the top while Baluchistan falls in the bottom. No districts of the Sindh could find a place among top 50. The 2014 District Education Rankings of 146 districts of Pakistan show that Islamabad was the best performing region in terms of overall standards of education, followed by districts of Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The 2015 District Education Ranking shows poor performance of Sindh while the performance of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for improving its enrollment, retention and gender parity indicators was lauded. Rawalpindi district was on top of the ranking.

Performance of Parliamentarians in Education Sector

Alif Ailaan also gauges the performance of every Member of the National Assembly on the basis of educational performance in their respective constituencies. They are assessed against four indicators for education – gender parity, physical facilities, student–teacher ratio and retention.