BRIDGING THE POLICY PRACTICE GAP: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN DISTRICT KARAK, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Abstract

There is a lot of good intentions in education policy in Pakistan, but not much in terms of execution. This paper highlights the implementation status of the National Education Policy (NEP) in district Karak of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and identifies the reasons for the gap in the implementation of the policy in the schools of the district. The data was gathered through a quantitative, cross-sectional survey which included 427 respondents, including District Education Officers, parents and students from Karak, Takht-e-Nasrati, and Banda Daud Shah tehsils. This research employed a 13-item, five-point Likert scale instrument to measure perceptions on four themes: policy and governance, teacher quality, infrastructure, and socio-cultural barriers. The 12 items had scores significantly higher than the neutral middle with agreement ranging from 91.1% to 95.6%. A significant difference was found with all 13 items (p < .001) in one-sample t-tests and there was no significant difference among the tehsils or by the groups of respondents (H (3) = 4.141, p = .247) in a Kruskal-Wallis H test. These findings indicate that the policy-practice gap in Karak is not isolated to a specific place, or specific group of respondents. The weak feedback systems, the overburdened, under-trained teaching force, development funds that have never been used and entrenched socio-cultural barriers to girls' education appear as the most serious challenges. The paper ends with recommendations for the Provincial Government, District Education Office and School Administrators.