Summary
Pakistan’s Ministry of Education, with support from EdTech Hub, developed the National Distance Education Strategy to align technology with real learning needs. Through evidence-based planning and inclusive stakeholder engagement, the strategy prioritises access, resilience, and foundational learning. Provinces are now tailoring EdTech solutions to local contexts, with government ownership ensuring sustainability. This marks a shift from tech-first to learning-first approaches, offering a scalable model for transforming education systems and reaching marginalised learners across Pakistan.
The Background
Pakistan is embracing a new chapter in education innovation. With over 75% of 10-year-olds unable to read a simple sentence, the country has long faced challenges in foundational literacy. The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 floods further disrupted learning, affecting at least 50 million children and highlighting the urgent need for resilient, inclusive education systems.
Recognising this, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFEPT) and UNICEF partnered with EdTech Hub to develop the National Distance Education Strategy (NDES), a forward-looking framework designed to harness the power of EdTech to meet the diverse learning needs of children across Pakistan.
Bridging the Gap
The Opportunity
Pakistan’s education system is decentralised, with provinces facing unique challenges ranging from infrastructure gaps in rural areas to climate-related emergencies. While EdTech has often been seen as a promising solution, past efforts were fragmented, technology-first, and lacked alignment with actual learning needs.
The NDES presented an opportunity to shift the narrative: from deploying technology for its own sake to using it as a strategic tool to enhance learning outcomes, build resilience, and promote equity. This was a chance to reimagine how EdTech could be used to reach every child, especially those most at risk of being left behind.
The Intervention
EdTech Hub had proved to be a trusted advisor to the government already and were asked to provide dedicated evidence-based technical assistance to ensure decision-makers could best position themselves to roll out scalable EdTech interventions for distance learning. The team played a fundamental role by coordinating and bringing together a network of partners to develop the strategy. EdTech Hub’s approach was grounded in evidence, collaboration, and capacity-building, ensuring that the strategy was not only technically sound but also locally owned and contextually relevant.
The key contributions to the development of the NDES included:
- Conducting a comprehensive review of Pakistan’s education landscape, identifying gaps in access, quality, and equity to help inform the strategic priorities of the NDES.
- Stakeholder engagement through inclusive consultations with provincial education departments, civil society organisations, teachers, and learners. The strategy was co-created to reflect the realities and aspirations of those it aimed to serve.
The NDES was built around four core learning goals:
- Access: expanding reach to underserved learners.
- Learning Outcomes: improving foundational literacy and numeracy.
- Resilience: building systems that can withstand future shocks.
- Enabling Environments: creating supportive ecosystems for EdTech adoption.
Each intervention within the strategy included a research component, allowing for continuous learning, adaptation, and evidence generation.
The Impact
The NDES has already begun to reshape how EdTech is understood and implemented in Pakistan. The work thus far has influenced an FCDO project on data accountability, and UNICEF has shown interest in funding their work further. EdTech Hub has continued to progress the strategy and is in the process of setting up a distance learning unit in the Ministry, where evidence will be at the heart of decision-making.
Key Outcomes
- Government ownership, where MoFEPT now leads the strategic design and delivery of EdTech initiatives, ensuring sustainability and alignment with national priorities.
- The strategy is informed by data and research, moving away from ad-hoc technology deployments to targeted, impactful interventions.
- Provinces are adapting and using the NDES framework to tailor EdTech solutions to their specific contexts, improving relevance and effectiveness.
- The strategy’s inclusive design prioritises marginalised learners, including girls, children with disabilities, and those in remote areas, ensuring that no child is left behind.
- By embedding EdTech into emergency response planning, the strategy strengthens Pakistan’s ability to maintain learning during future disruptions.
Lessons Learnt
Holistically, this process offers valuable insights for countries and donors seeking to make meaningful investments in EdTech. Through this work, we learn that technology should be deployed only after understanding the specific learning challenges it aims to address. When it comes to engaging stakeholders, this should be done from the outset to ensure relevance, trust, and long-term commitment and ownership, as sustainable change requires decision makers from ministries to lead — not just endorse — innovation. Additionally, embedding research into strategy design ensures that interventions are effective and scalable. A good strategy must be adaptable to different contexts and evolving challenges.
Pakistan’s journey shows that when EdTech is grounded in evidence and designed with intention, it can transform entire education systems. Now is the moment to build on this progress. We call on donors and partners to invest in scalable, inclusive solutions that improve learning for the most marginalised, and to fund the capacity building that empowers ministries to lead and sustain innovation. Continued investment in research and evaluation is essential to close evidence gaps and understand what truly works, for whom, and in which contexts. Above all, champion local ownership, ensuring national governments are in the driver’s seat, with external partners offering support, not substitution.
Pakistan’s National Distance Education Strategy is more than a policy; it’s a blueprint for transforming education through inclusive, resilient, and evidence-based innovation. With continued collaboration and investment, it can serve as a model for other countries seeking to bridge the gap between EdTech potential and educational realities.
Evidence and Insights
Impact Through Partnership
