By Khalid Khattak
In May 2025, I covered a story that began like so many others–with a minister’s statement. In Pakistan’s Punjab province, the provincial education minister announced that every public primary school in the province would soon have an Early Childhood Education (ECE) classroom. It was a big-sounding promise, but without context, it risked being just another headline.
That’s when I decided to dig deeper and bring the story to life using numbers, not just to report the announcement, but to show its scale, its challenge, and its urgency. You can read the final published story here:
👉 Minister for dedicating Early Childhood Education room in every school – The News
The minister didn’t mention how many schools currently offer ECE. There were no numbers, no timelines, no budget specifics. But I knew readers needed something more solid to understand the real weight of this commitment.
So I began searching and investigating the numbers behind the minister’s claim. I reached out to my trusted contacts in the School Education Department — sources I’ve built relationships with over the past 18 years. They shared initial figures with me, but I didn’t stop there. To ensure accuracy, I cross-checked those numbers with the latest Annual School Census Report 2023–24, published by the Programme Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU) under the Punjab Education Sector Reforms Programme (PESRP). This independent validation gave me the confidence to ground my story in verified, up-to-date data.
I found that Punjab has around 26,000 public primary schools. That one number gave the statement its true size: this wasn’t a minor adjustment — it was a province-wide shift.
I dug further and found that only about 5,600 primary schools — just 21.5% — currently have ECE classrooms. That meant nearly four out of five schools still lack them. Suddenly, the story had structure: a clear problem, a numerical gap, and a concrete goal.
I added one more layer — looking at all public schools in Punjab (about 43,000) — and found that only 9,300 of them have ECE classrooms. That second data point helped me reinforce the depth of the challenge and gave the story a more complete picture.
By doing this, I was able to shift the focus from just what the minister said to what the statement really implies — in terms of planning, resources, and the lives of thousands of young children.
This wasn’t just about quoting a politician. It became a story about educational equity, policy ambition, and what it will take to fulfill that promise.
Now, a few weeks later, I’m sharing this experience with fellow journalists and journalism students because I believe in the power of numbers to make stories stronger. You don’t need to be a data specialist — you just need curiosity, and a habit of asking, “What do the numbers say?”
Once you do that, even the most routine announcement can open up into something far more meaningful, engaging, and impactful.
Let’s keep learning and sharing.
