GAWE 2025: Education, Skills, and Learning for All: Capturing Grassroots Realities

For GAWE 2025, PCE built its campaign around a question the education system rarely puts to students directly: what skills do you actually need, and is your schooling giving them to you? Under the theme Education, Skills, and Learning for All: Capturing Grassroots Realities, the campaign set out to highlight the importance of skill-based education, gather on-ground insights from students and communities, and use that evidence to inform provincial and national policy. It rested on a conviction PCE’s partners voiced plainly: that the current system does not meet international standards, that after ten years of schooling many students still leave without a clear sense of their future or the functional and technical skills to pursue it, and that this has to change.

Student Skills Mapping Survey: At the heart of the campaign was a skills-mapping survey conducted across twelve districts to assess the skills landscape, identify gaps, understand student aspirations, and analyse learning needs, generating district-specific evidence to put in front of policymakers. In each district, the survey reached 110 students, 50 girls, 50 boys, and 10 students with disabilities, drawn from Grades 10 and 12 in public schools, with school enrolment verified for each respondent. It was carried out by PCE's member organisations in 12 districts: Dera Ghazi Khan, Khanewal, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Ghotki, Swabi, Buner, Muzaffargarh, Nankana Sahib, Lahore, Vehari and Quetta. A score card series profiles the findings of the survey. 

Read more: Link the “Mapping Skills for the Future” report here.

PAGE Consultations with District Education Officers: Alongside the survey, members convened consultations with District Education Officers, using the PAGE platform, to discuss the current skill gaps in a rapidly changing world, the key skills students need to navigate it, the challenges of implementing skill-based learning in schools, and recommendations for strengthening it locally. Each consultation brought together education department representatives, teachers and school leaders, youth representatives, civil society and community activists, industry representatives, and PAGE members. Members worked to secure written commitments from district officials on advancing skill-based learning, on which they would follow-through.