Where Are Pakistan’s Out-of-School Children ? Mapping Accessibility of Schooling Using Satellite Data and Machine Learning Methods with an Application to the 2022 Floods

Umar Saif, Amer Hasan, Ayesha Tahir, Koen Martijn Geven, Mohsen Ali, Aliza Masood, Muhammad Abdul Rahman and Sheena Fazili

No 11341, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: According to administrative data, as many as 25 million children between the ages of 5 and 16 are out-of-school in Pakistan. However, little is known about where these children are in relation to available public and private schooling options. This paper brings together novel data from satellite imagery, the population census, government school censuses of public schools, and publicly available location data on private schools to understand the out-of-school phenomenon at the community level. The paper uses satellite imagery analysis and machine learning methods to present estimates of the accessibility of schools and to describe the whitespace between schools. The paper relies on administrative data from more than 137,000 public schools and documents the existence of more than 72,700 private schools using publicly available location data. The approach suggests that 21.7 million children (49 percent of the total) are enrolled in private schools, higher than previously reported official estimates. The paper also presents detailed data on how the out-of-school population, accessibility, and whitespace are distributed geo-spatially across Pakistan. As an application of the strength of using satellite imagery, it analyzes the effect of a major flood event in 2022 on accessibility, whitespace, and catchment areas. Doing so suggests that the 2022 floods affected the schooling of approximately 3.5 million children in Pakistan. Lastly, an in-person ground-truthing survey conducted about 18 months after the floods is used to corroborate the findings. Together, the data sets and methods presented in this paper have applications for both day-to-day monitoring of school infrastructure as well as pre- and post-disaster planning efforts in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Date: 2026-03-20
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