The Chief Executive of Pakistan in a meeting held on Social Sector dated 13-03-2000, expressed great concern about non-availability of data on “Education Facilities and Expenditure in Private Sector”. It is a fact that in the past 20 years or so educational facilities in private sector specially in urban areas have emerged at high rate of growth, but information on their number, type of education being provided, enrolment of students and expenditure incurred is not available from any source. Data gap in this sector was felt since long. However, due to paucity of funds, no big effort could be made to collect complete data on development of different types of private institutions in the country. In the meantime, Ministry of Education as well as Provincial Governments attempted to collect the record of development of private educational institutions, but could not complete the process due to different reasons. However, Federal Bureau of Statistics being the prime statistical agency in Pakistan was entrusted the job to conduct Census of Private Educational Institutions in Pakistan. In spite of shortage of manpower and financial resources, FBS assigned first priority to this census keeping in view the use of its data for planning purpose and to know the contribution of private sector in Gross Domestic Product. The census was initiated in April, 2000 to collect the data on magnitude of the private educational institutions, their enrolment, expenditure incurred and income generated by them during the academic year 1999-2000.

The main objectives of the study are as follows:-

1. To assess the private sector’s share in overall expenditure on education in the country as percentage of GDP.
2. To assess the private sector’s role in the development of educational infrastructure.
3. To provide bench-mark information about private sector’s education in terms of:
   1. Number of institutions by type i.e. primary schools, middle schools, secondary schools, colleges, professional colleges, Universities, commercial/training institutions etc.
   2. Enrolment by type and category
   3. Number of teachers by education level
   4. Number and short term courses and their enrolment.
   5. Expenditure on rent of building, repair and maintenance, utilities and other misc. expenditure.
   6. Payment to teaching and non teaching staff.
   7. Income of the institutions by type.

The data was collected by direct interview method by field staff of FBS from all urban and rural areas of Pakistan defined in 1998 Population Census including FATA. Military restricted areas and protected areas of NWFP were excluded. The FBS has divided the urban areas into blocks comprising approximately 200-250 households whereas village list based on Census of Population 1998 was used as frame to conduct this census in rural areas. The enumeration was undertaken block to block in case of urban areas and village to village in case of rural areas, so that no areas should be left un-covered. Before starting field operation all the field enumerators were provided training from 5th to 15th May, 2000 and field operation was started w.e.f 15th May, 2000. All efforts were made to observe both coverage and quality of data. Senior Officers of field and headquarter made frequent visits to solve field problems and seek cooperation of the problematic institutions regarding the objectives and importance of the census. Members of Monitoring Committee also paid field visits to assess the coverage and quality of data. Lists of private registered institutions were obtained from the District Education Authorities and were used as a primary bench mark data to cross check the coverage of the institutions.

Only those institutions were covered which are run in the private sector with respect to financial and administrative control. Other institution covered include those individually owned or run by the Trust, Board of Directors and Foundation. Some institutions which apparently seem to fall in government or semi-government but are run by self-generated funds by the employees like Fauji Foundation, Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, OGDC, PIA etc were covered. Some institutions giving general education also conduct short courses in other subjects like computer, commerce and administration etc. have been classified as general institutions. However, enrolment of their students in such courses has been recorded in relevant portion. Some of the institutions are conducting Commerce, Computer, and Administration courses and are classified in technical education and their enrolment is recorded separately. At university level, where technical education is provided, they are covered under post graduate technical education. The distribution of Urban and Rural areas covered under this census is given below:

1. This census covered private educational institutions set up before 31st March, 2000. As such the institution established after 31st March, 2000 were not covered.
2. Mosque educational institutions and tuition centres have not been included in this census.
3. The information regarding qualification of teaching staff, other than general educational institutions is not available by category.
4. Information on training of technical teaching staff is not available accordingly.