ISLAMABAD: In a significant move towards improving the Pakistan education measurement framework, the Federal Ministry of Education and Professional Training has announced the inclusion of private schools in the “National Achievement Test” scheduled for 2026.
This is a major development in the expansion of the assessment of learning in Pakistan and will prove to be a key factor in understanding an accurate depiction of students’ performance in Pakistan.
Officials believe the National Achievement Test 2026 in Pakistan will help policymakers better compare learning outcomes across public and private education systems.
Parallel to the above initiative, the ministry launched the first-ever National Foundational Learning Assessment in Pakistan to assess foundational competencies of the first grades of schooling to address the deficiencies in areas of foundational competencies of Reading, Writes, and Arithmetic.
The Federal Secretary for Education, Nadeem Mahboob, while briefing the media, explained that the assessment framework has been aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4) indicators, with a focus on inclusive and quality education. According to him, the purpose was to produce reliable and comparable data that can serve evidence-based policymaking and bound Pakistan’s international reporting requirements.
According to the Secretary, the assessments shall be done at Grade 5 and Grade 8 levels and shall cover schools from all provinces and regions. Engaging private schools in the process, he said, will help present a more comprehensive and realistic snapshot of learning outcomes across the country, as opposed to just deriving data from the public sector.
Under the NAT 2026 and the National Foundational Learning Study, more than 20,000 students will be assessed through scientifically designed sampling methods to ensure transparency, credibility, and accuracy of results.
For context, Nadeem Mahboob remembered that from the results of the National Achievement Test 2023, there had been an indication of a “serious education crisis” in the country. It was based on this that the Prime Minister had declared that the country was in a state of education emergency.
He also said that reconnecting out-of-school children with mainstream education and taking care of their educational needs is a collective responsibility of both federal and provincial governments.
The findings of the National Achievement Test 2026 Pakistan are expected to play a crucial role in shaping future education reforms and accountability measures.
The implementation of the comprehensive assessment project would be conducted through the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE), and would be technically assisted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR).
Education experts believe the inclusion of private schools and early-grade assessments could play a critical role in shaping future education policies and improving learning standards across Pakistan.
