DARE - Research Consortium

20/08/2026

DARE RC Research in Action !

On 19 August, the DARE-RC team briefed the Chairman of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on key findings from our climate portfolio — presenting evidence from the National Emergencies Operation Center in Islamabad.

The numbers are stark. The 2022 floods damaged or destroyed more than 25,900 schools and directly interrupted education for 3.5 million children. For every 1,000 children, 16 to 40 more dropped out than would have otherwise — and girls made up 55 to 58.7% of those whose learning was disrupted, with early marriage a key driver. For 20 to 30% of affected children, that disruption becomes permanent.

NDMA has a critical role to play in tackling climate change in Pakistan, and disasters like the 2022 floods show why education has to be part of that response, not an afterthought. DARE-RC is building the evidence base to show what climate-resilient education systems can actually look like — from national data analysis to primary fieldwork across flood-affected districts like Khairpur and Badin in Sindh.

Grateful to the Chairman and the NDMA team for their time and engagement, and to everyone who helped bring this research to the table.

19/08/2026

What's stopping teachers who want to teach differently from actually doing it?

A study by Dr Sadia Bhutta and her team on Science and Mathematics teaching observed 436 classrooms across Pakistan. Most teachers said they wanted to teach in a more interactive, student-centred way. In practice, classroom observations told a different story — teaching stayed largely teacher-led, with things like group work and real-time feedback still rare.

The gap wasn't about motivation. When DARE's researchers looked at what actually predicted better teaching, two things stood out ahead of everything else: class size and how well teachers used their lesson time. Classrooms under 40 students, and lessons where the full 35 minutes was used well, made more difference than a teacher's qualifications or which school system they taught in.

Dr Aliya Khalid and her team's work in KP and ICT backs this up from another angle — in classrooms of 70-80 students, there's often no realistic way to teach students individually, no matter how skilled or willing the teacher is.

Taken together, the two studies point to something practical: manageable classrooms aren't a nice-to-have. They're what makes training, curriculum, good intentions actually work.

This is one of the questions we're taking from evidence to action at the DARE-RC International Education Summit, 31 October–1 November, LUMS, Lahore. Details here: darerc.org/education-summit-2026

Oxford Policy Management | Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan | Sightsavers

05/08/2026

Climate change doesn't create a weak education system. It exposes existing cracks.

Evidence from the portfolio shows that, for the child, it shows up as learning lost. For example, research by Seher Aftab shows that for children displaced by climate events, the damage compounds: enrolment among migrant children in Karachi dropped from around three in four before displacement to about one in two after it, as documentation requirements, financial pressure and repeated moves kept pulling them back out of school.

For the school, it shows up as damage that outlasts the event. Thousands of schools across Sindh were destroyed or damaged in the 2022 floods alone, and the schools left standing absorb the overflow — crowded classrooms, less teaching time, and a curriculum that keeps slipping further behind schedule.

Climate also exposes a weak system. Research led by Dr. Rabea-Malik points to the absence of coordination between education, climate and disaster planning.

Three different levels, the same underlying story: climate change doesn't test a system that was ready. It tests one that wasn't, and the results are clear to see.

hashtag hashtag hashtag Oxford Policy Management | Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan | Sightsavers

31/07/2026

Climate disruption to a school year no longer has a single season. Heat builds through the early summer, smog settles over cities in the winter months, and rain now arrives either too heavily or not at all, while along the coast land and water are slowly changing places. Our research found districts contending with several of these at once, so the disruption is not one hazard in one season but overlapping hazards spread across the year.

Closures are only the visible part. The same events damage school buildings, cut off water and sanitation, and reduce household incomes to the point where keeping a child in school becomes a decision families have to weigh rather than assume.

Taken together, this changes what kind of problem we are dealing with. A single interrupted year is an emergency, and a system can absorb one. But when teaching time is lost every year, from several directions, that is no longer an emergency — it is the condition the education system now operates in. Pakistan's school calendar, its curriculum pacing and its whole model of delivery were designed around an uninterrupted year, and that is the assumption the evidence no longer supports.

Which leads to the question we'll take up next: if the year is always going to be interrupted, what does recovery actually mean?

Oxford Policy Management | Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan | Sightsavers

28/07/2026

Pakistan is one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change. Yet our education system is still trying to function in schools designed for a climate that no longer exists.

When a heatwave or a flood shuts a school, the loss doesn't end when the doors reopen. Teaching time is gone. Some children return weeks behind. Some never return at all.
For years, we knew this was happening. What we didn't know was how much learning is lost, which children are affected most, or what it would take for the education system to recover.

That's the evidence gap DARE - Research Consortium is helping to close. Working with researchers across Pakistan, we've built a portfolio of six studies on climate and education — looking at flood-affected districts in Sindh, children displaced from their home districts, adolescent learners in both cities and villages, and how prepared individual schools really are. Our thematic policy brief brings that evidence together: key findings on how climate is disrupting education, and areas where federal and provincial policymakers can act.

Over the coming weeks we're sharing the findings. The first begins with a question the system has never had a clear answer to.
What does a flood cost a child's education?

27/07/2026

Umerkot: 12.2% of children stuck at the very beginning of the learning ladder, down to 1.1%. 7,606 children now reading full stories in Urdu/Sindhi.
Those numbers came from four TaRL cohorts on the ground.
In our latest DARE-RC's Building Communities of Practice webinar, three people who've watched this work up close asked the harder question: can it survive beyond the pilot?

→ Baela Jamil traced how TaRL moved from Sindh's post-flood Chalo Parho Barho response into a government-led programme. She noted that sustained partnerships and political commitment can turn a short-term intervention into institutional practice.

→ Dr.Fouzia Khan named what that ownership actually requires: policy alignment, teacher development, assessment built into government systems, and financing that doesn't disappear when the project does.

→ Kanza Abbasi brought the evidence — Karachi West and Umerkot together, showing gains that held across urban and rural settings, and across girls and boys alike.
The thread running through all three: pedagogy alone doesn't scale. Systems do.

Read the Umerkot story → https://darerc.org/where-the-desert-meets-the-classroom-a-story-of-resilience-from-umerkot

DARE - Research Consortium, Oxford Policy Management, Sightsavers

22/07/2026

Umerkot sits on the edge of the Thar desert. Drought, heat, and the 2022 floods have all passed through here — and every time they do, children lose months of schooling. When they return, the grade they sit in and the level they're at have drifted further apart.

That's what makes Teaching at the Right Level more than a pedagogy in a district like this. It doesn't assume an uninterrupted school journey. It meets children where they actually are — and in Umerkot, that meant 7,606 children now reading full stories in Urdu/Sindhi.

For education systems facing repeated climate shocks, this matters: recovery can't just mean reopening schools. It has to mean recovering learning.
This is the gap DARE-RC works on — evidence for marginalised children whose education is disrupted by poverty and climate-induced disasters, and for systems that can respond with coherence and accountability.

Read the full piece → https://darerc.org/where-the-desert-meets-the-classroom-a-story-of-resilience-from-umerkot/

20/07/2026

A school in Pakistan can close for up to five months a year because of climate shocks. When it reopens, the curriculum is cut, but the exams aren't.

That was one of the realities on the table, we discussed at the Roundtable Consultation on Climate-Resilient Inclusive Education, organised by Sightsavers Pakistan and Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), bringing government officials, academics, and development partners into one conversation.

Swipe through for what we heard. →

20/07/2026

Pakistan is one of the ten countries most affected by climate change — yet its education system remains structurally unprepared for the crises already unfolding.

The Roundtable Consultation on Climate-Resilient Inclusive Education in Pakistan, organised by Sightsavers Pakistan and Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), brought together government officials, academics, and development partners, all at the same table.

The room included Dr. Muhammad Zaigham Qadeer, Acting Director of Research at the Pakistan Institute of Education - PIE; Ms. Munazza Gillani, Country Director at Sightsavers; Dr. Sapana Basnet, Co-Principal Investigator of the research presented; Dr. ZAHID MAJEED, PhD from AIOU; Dr.Fouzia Khan, Chief Executive Advisor for School Education & Literacy; Mr. Itfaq Khaliq Khan, Co-PI at Sightsavers; alongside representatives from the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, Tabadlab, DARE - Research Consortium-RC, and AKU-IED Professional Development Centre, Karachi.

Over the course of the day, we heard groundbreaking research, reflections on policy gaps, and proposals for a coordinated and inclusive response to climate disruption in education.

Over the next few posts, we will be sharing key moments, findings, and takeaways from the day. Stay tuned. 👇

13/07/2026

What happens when learning meets children where they are?

For two brothers from Umerkot's Jogi community, generations of movement meant education was often interrupted. But instead of expecting them to catch up to the curriculum, Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) met them at their own learning level—using play, storymaking and storytelling, and collaboration to build confidence and foundational skills.

Now, alongside the rich traditions of poetry, storytelling, and healing that their community has carried across generations, these brothers are carrying something new: the joy of learning and the knowledge that education can travel with them, too.
🔗 Read their story:

Authors: Baela Raza Jamil- CEO Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA) , Kanza Abbasi - Manager-Special Initiatives and Foundational Learning (ITA)