Education as Strategic Imperative

Education lies at the heart of Pakistan’s multiple challenges. If Pakistan is to emerge as a stable, moderate
polity able to reap dividends from its bourgeoning population it must be able to provide the young and future
generations both personal safety and a decent livelihood. This requires relative peace, an environment conducive
for economic growth, and a workforce that can power progress. Vital to such turnaround is a well -educated
population. Only through massive quantitative and qualitative gains in education can Pakistan produce the skill
set required to derive the economy efficiently and produce a critical mass of well informed and visionary
leadership it so badly needs. Equally important, it is only through high quality, value neutral education that
Pakistan can challenge the salience of the Islamic discourse that threatens to radicalise society and drive youth
energies towards destructive---often violent channels.

This means that education should not only be a development priority but also a strategic one. Pakistan’s
education performance is a tale of unfulfilled expectations which has caused disaffection and alienation among
vast segments of society. The immediate future needs to be seen as a corrective phase that requires holistic
interventions in the education sector. The chapter begins by outlining the conceptual underpinnings of the
empirical analysis to follow. This is followed by the consideration of the Pakistani education sector’s performance
and implications for society. In the final sections concrete steps are identified that can help bring about the required
transformation.

Education as an ’Expectation Builder’

Modern societies grasped the importance of a well-educated polity very early on. In the recent decades
however, investment in the human capacity has become a top priority for international, multinational, and national
efforts. Conventional wisdom suggested the education was critical for a society to produce a skilled labour force
that could operate as productive members of the economy. Overtime, education has increasingly been seen as a
force multiplier capable of having a much broader impact –both positive and negative on societies than merely
producing a skilled work force. High quality education can provide the means of social mobility and act as a
source of contentment to people. It can contribute to peace, derive societal narratives and thus mould the very
outlook of communities positively, as well as inculcate a civic sense among citizens. On the other hand, poor
educational standards or agenda -driven education can contribute to a sense of alienation and deprivation, led to
internal discord and violence, and channelise societal energies in unproductive directions.

The discussion here draws on the ‘expectations’ literature. Education is seen as an ‘expectations’ builder;
it raises anticipations at three distinct stages. To begin with, demand for education creates expectations among
parents and children that the state would be able to provide opportunities for acquiring education. Once access to
education is provided, consumers began to expect qualitative improvements. The third stages of expectations
stems from the fact that the schooling process itself has attached to its hopes of finding commensurate
employment.

The literature talks of unfulfilled expectations as a major worry. A failure to fulfil expectations in terms
of access to or quality of education could be a function of state in capacity, deliberate policies that exclude certain
segment of society, or education content that is ill-suited to the requirements of modern economies and societies.
Regardless, it implies that those who miss out are not fit to contribute to the economy optimally. Moreover they
tend to feel aggrieved and may become alienated and marginalised from their communities. Alienation,
deprivation, and marginalisation of youth are in turn linked to radicalisation and discord. However, the failure of
education does not have to be absolute to cause alienation. Particular segments of the societies can be at a loss
even if then rest of the society is progressing. In fact, the literature argue that the feeling of alienation and
marginalisation are often harboured when access to opportunities is unequal rather than absent. Discussing young
males in particular, Collier (2000, p.94) supports the relative deprivation hypothesis. Kaplan (1996) occurs with
the same view, arguing that the discrimination against specific segments of society can cause the disadvantaged
to resort to violence .indeed, the global studies on the linkage between education and violence point to a correlation
between conflict outbreak and persistence and low educational attainment .Countries with the lowest rate of
primary school enrolment sow greater incidence of conflict. Secondary education is always believed to be
inversely related to prevalence of internal conflict.

Educational content can also be used deliberately to pursue particular agenda or to create a sense of
deprivation among students. Learning material can emphasise a particular version of history or a worldview that
may create an exclusionary and discriminatory min-set. Curricula, learning materials and teaching methods that
promote narrow –minded outlooks and intolerance are least suited to peaceful co0existence.Much too often,
communities that have experienced extreme forms of conflicts have had divisive education systems. Rwanda,
New Germany, And South Asian counties like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan are all cases in point.

The problem of perceived alienation or deprivation is compounded in contexts already ridden by violence
and extremism .Here, the frustration caused by low education attainment, agenda-driven content, or a mismatch
between education and economic opportunities provide a perfect opportunity for militants to recruit cadres.

Grounding the argument in the ’education as an expectation builder’ premise, the following discussion
examines the Pakistani case in some detail .it argues that the Pakistani education sector has led to unfulfilled
expectations at each of the three mentioned stages: there has been a failure to provide enough education, to provide
good quality education, and to provide amicable livelihoods to the educated. Consequently, a vast proportion of
the Pakistani population is ill prepared for a modern economy to internal discord and violence.

Recounting “Educational Failure” in Pakistanis Education

Stage 1: Failure to provide. Pakistan has made progress with regard to most education indicators over
time. The Total net primary enrolment rate has increased from 33 per cent in 1991 to 66 per cent in 2008.The ratio
of female to male primary enrolment has increased from 52 percent to 83 percent. Meanwhile, the total primary
completion rate as a percentage of the relevant age group has risen from 50 per cent to 60 per cent in the
corresponding period. The total adult literacy rate has also increased from 26 per cent in 1981 to 54 per cent in
2008. Recent developments have yielded somewhat greater progress exemplified by the fact that youth literacy at
68.9 per cent is 15 per cent higher than adult literacy.

But progress remains poor both in absolute terms as and relative to the rest of the South Asian region and
other lower middle-income developing countries. With the exception of Afghanistan, Pakistan, has the lowest
education outcomes in the region. Half of Pakistan’s population is illiterate, the country has the second highest
number of out –of- school children in the world (9.5 million in 2005), it suffers from high drop –out rates even at
the primary level, and there is substantial gender disparity at every education level. In fact, despite overall
quantitative gains the gender gap has widened between 1981 and 2008 from 20.6 to 26.8 per cent. Rural-urban
and interprovincial disparity also continues to persist. Interprovincial disparity in youth literacy is just as high as
in adult literacy.

It is evident then that the Pakistani education system has failed to reach a large proportion of its eligible
population. The problem is principally a supply side one. For one, the difficulty of accessing educational facilities
keeps children away. A number of surveys register complaints about having to travel long distances to reach
schools, especially for girls in rural areas. Lack of basic facilities in schools such as electricity, drinking water
and toilets are additional deterrents to school attendance. Out of 163914 public schools (including 10651 mosques
schools) ,10.5 per cent operate without a building ; 6.1 per cent are Kacha schools; 61 per cent lack electricity;
36.5 per cent lack drinking water; 42.4 lack latrines; 44.3 per cent lack boundary walls; 3.8 per cent are declared
dangerous while another 16.5 are in need of major repair. Almost 10000 schools are officially designated as non-
functional. Vacant teacher posts and absenteeism are also high across all provinces .Un affordable costs, lack of
interest in education, and for females, cultural sensitives are other commonly cited reasons for children being out
of school.

The present situation represent a failure on the part of the state to deliver on its fundamental duties to
provide basic educational opportunities to its citizens .those left out are people who will at best be sub optimal
participants in the economy during their productive work life .there sheer number represents a massage lost
opportunity for Pakistan. Also, the current situation is bound to engender frustration and dis affection across the
board. This is specially the case for our societies like Pakistan’s where demand for education is very high .in a
population counsel (2002) survey whose findings have persistently between conformed by subsequent research,
80 per cent of the young males and over 70 percent of their female counter parts included in the survey expressed
a desire to be educated at secondary and tertiary levels. The supply demand gap when is an obvious alienating
factors internal tensions become even more likely when one considers that gender and geographical location with
in Pakistan are significant determinants of access to education.
 A number of reasons can adduced from this dismal state of affairs. The 2009 National Educational Policy
clearly identifies the two primary reasons as the ‘Commitment gap ’and the ‘implementation gap’. The

commitment gap is reflected in the low resources allocation to the sector.in 2009-10, public expenditures on
education were two percent of GDP, the lowest in South Asia. This represents the Pakistan’s average educational
spending; in the last fifteen years, average educational expenditures have been a mere 2.1 per cent of GDP. Even
within education, the bulk of investment has been channelled to a few well-maintained higher education
institutions implying that the benefits of public subsidy of education are primarily availed by the higher income
groups. The primary and secondary education tiers which are believed to be crucial to developing human capacity
en mass have been neglected.

The implementation gap directly affects governance of the sector as well as allocation and utilisation of
resources. The lack of planning culture and capacity and weaknesses in administrative capacity and accountability
mechanism result in only 20 to 30 per cent of the allocated fund being utilised effectively. Corruption ,manifested
in funds siphoned away for personal gain ,influence in the allocation of resources, in the recruitment ,training and
posting of teachers, in the selection of text books , and in the conduct of examinations and assessments are
significant implementation challenges that decision-makers have struggled to address.

Stage 2: Failure to deliver Quality. Pakistan’s education sector is anomalous in that it has three parallel
and largely unconnected systems of education operating simultaneously. These are the public and non-elite private
schools, the elite private Schools’ and the religion seminaries –the madrasahs. Approximately 67 per cent of the
school going children are enrolled in public schools, close to 29 per cent are in private schools—the majority of
these are in non-elite variant—and 4 per cent attend madrasahs. The three systems follow their own curricula,
teaching methods, and examination processes. Consequently, quality of education and the type of student body in
each vary greatly. Only the public education system is fully regulated by the government.

Three education systems are broadly stratified along three dimensions: Socio-economic, qualitative, and
ideological. The madrasahs systems largely caters to children from the poorest segment of society. The majority
of the public schools and non-elite private schools students belong to lower middles class to middle socio-
economic groups. Elite private schools apply stringent socio-economic screening and are reserved exclusively for
the rich. So isolated are these systems that students go through their school life (even adult life) without having
the opportunity to engage intellectually across systems. The education sector therefore ends up producing three
distinct cohorts from within the Pakistani youth, each requires cut off from the other.

In terms of quality the madrasahs have the greatest mismatch with the requirements of modern
economies. They are essentially geared towards producing cadres suitable only for the clerical spheres; this makes
them misfits from mainstreams employment opportunities. The public education and a large proportion of the
non-elite private schools ---together account for the overwhelming majority of Pakistani students—also suffer
from extreme qualitative shortcomings. This is manifested in the learning outcomes, curricula, textbooks and other
learning materials, assessments, teacher quality, and the learning environment. Although they teach all subjects
expected f modern school systems, they follow fixed syllabi, which encourage root learning---memorisation. The
medium of instruction in public schools is predominant Urdu; they even lack the capacity to develop minimum
level of proficiency in the English Language, which is necessary for most white—collar jobs. The relatively small
number of elite private schools are only ones that provide decent quality education. The use of English as a
medium of learning and are ahead of others in terms of teaching standards and learning outcomes. Most of them
encourage objectivity and creative thinking among students. It is hardly surprising then that parents who send
their children to private schools are found to be far more satisfied than those whose kids attend public schools or
formal madrasahs.

The third layer of stratification is ideological. Though there is considerably greater overlap across
systems in this case, in general one can attribute distinct and often irreconcilable world visions across the three
systems. Pakistani madrasahs may not be actively engaged in producing militants as the west has suspected for
long but they produce graduates with narrow—minded ideological biases .in her research on madrasahs, Christine
Fair (2006; 2007) argues that theses cadres are much more likely to sympathise with Islamists where they are
welcomed and given positive identity. The syllabi of the public schooling system is are closely managed by the
state and provide a highly skewed historical narrative that is nationalistic and creates a siege mentality by
portraying Pakistan as being perpetually under threat from all corners. The content also meshes Islam wit
nationalism and presents the two being intrinsically linked. The roots of this anomaly lie in the 1980s when
agenda—driven education was deliberately used as a political tool and textbooks were to inject a definitive anti—
India and pan –Islamic bias. The elite private schools, while being bounded by the state to follow the prescribed
narrative in subjects such as Pakistan studies, have more leeway given their unregulated nature. In addition, the

economic stratum their students belong to allow them more physical and informational exposure to western style
of life and leaves them less susceptible to accepting the curriculum biases at face value.

The divergent outlooks of these three cohorts are from who they look up to and which direction they
want their country to take .Madrasah students tend to be amenable to the extremist view. Students from the public
schools, who are perhaps more representatives of mainstream society, idealise legendry Muslim historical figures
known for their anti—west out—look .products of the private schools talks fondly of Hollywood Stars,
personalities in the arts and theatre, international sportsmen and the like. Overwhelming majority of private
school—educated youth seem to be turkey as a model for Pakistan t0 replicate. This is fundamentally different
than the preference of their less privileged counterparts who are more likely to mention Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Frustration, alienation, international discord and polarisation are built into education system. The
isolation and divergent outlooks of the three variants make for a divided polity. Indeed, perception of the country’s
youth validate this. Children of the elite re highly dismissive of their Urdu medium counterparts and intolerant of
young rural men, especially those from lower socio—economic backgrounds. A sizeable segment from within the
elite schools considers itself superior and more progressive then rest. Madrasah students on the other hand blame
the elite for having robbed them of necessary resources and causing hardships for the rest of the society. Their
sense of alienation and deprivation is shared by the public school, and to a lesser extent non elite private school
students and provide an opening to Islamists to cash in on a ‘have versus have nets’ narratives. These desperate
vision virtually make it impossible to forge a consensus on a national narrative in Pakistan.

Stage 3 Failure to provide livelihoods. Educational attainment is a double—edged sword. While lack of
education disqualifies youth from attaining economic mobility and is thus undesirable, high level of education
without the requisite outlet to apply skills raises expectation which, if unfulfilled for long, can create an
‘exception-reality disconnect’. Again, the latter makes the excluded disgruntled with the system. Which not only
keeps potentially productive human capacity from engaging in constructive endeavours but also act as a violence
inducing factor.

Surveys suggest that overwhelming majority of young men and women in the Pakistan want to work
provided suitable opportunities—commensurate with their educational attainment—are made available.
Unfortunately access to desirable employment in Pakistan is as equal as provision for high quality education.
While Pakistan’s labour market has expanded, and the unemployment rates has declined to an impressive 5.32 per
cent, improvement is unable to keep up with large pool of employable youth.in fact, youth employment has only
dropped marginally since 1990 and even many who were employed at one time fell back into unemployed
category. To be sure, majority of non-elite young citizen can only find relatively menial jobs and are thus
underemployed. The public sector is inherently corrupt and jobs openings are rarely awarded on merit. Children
of the poor, with generally little access to corridors of power and already disadvantaged by the poor skills set
developed in public schools, are invariably the first to be denied these prized positions.

The private sector has expanded tremendously in the recent years and presents many more lucrative opportunities.
Ironically however, the combination of private sector’s growth and virtual breakdown of the public sector act to
increase the inequality in opportunities for graduates versus public schools. Private sector employees with diverse
exposures, a broad knowledge base, good English language skills, and robust analytical ability. The only young
adults that fit the bill are the products of elite private schools or foreign colleges (the latter are exclusively
members of elite households). In fact, so blatant is the bias against public, none—elite private, and madrasah
graduates that recruiters explicitly put a premium on foreign and elite local degrees. A disproportionate amount
of entry level positions thus end up going to the already rich, leaving those from lower socio—economic classes
underemployed .For educated (even in poorly) young men ,underemployment ends up having just as of an
alienating effect as unemployment.

There is evident aplenty of the coming crises. Increasingly reasonably eloquent, post—secondary degree
holders are seeking financial help—that is to say, begging—on the streets of the urban towns in Pakistan. There
are young men very different from the stereotypical beggars that dots the streets of Pakistani cities and have been
forced to the street by the labour market crunch. Detailed discussions with such individuals reveal great contempt
for a state that cannot provide opportunities. There is also envy and resentment against the elite against who are
believed to have deliberately created entry barriers for the poor, and there is a sense of alienation from the larger
society.
Reversing Failure: Inability to reverse these failures will not only limit Pakistan’s economic growth but
carries the potential of rupturing the very fabric of society though polarisation and unrest. While there is very little
hard evidence for education having contributed directly to terrorism in Pakistan, anecdotal evidence combined
with profiles of most actors involved in terrorist attacks does suggest a linkage. Indeed, it would be naive to
believe an absence of any correlation. The mechanisms through which this connection would be playing out are
aptly described by Winthrop and Graff (2010) as:

(i) Poor education causing grievances for those left out.

(ii) Education creating narrow world views.
(iii) Education failing to instil civic citizenship.
(iv) The context providing opportunities for militant recruitment.

Further challenges in terms of reversing the identified failures in education are likely to be even more
daunting than in the past. A major reason is the severe demographic pressure. Pakistan possesses one of the largest
youth bulges in the world. Over sixty-five million are between ages zero and fourteen and are thus either currently
at school or will enter school life in the coming decade. Furthermore Pakistan is only half way through its
demographic transition and the current rate of 3.8 births per female is set to carry Pakistan’s youth bulge well
beyond 2025. This implies an extremely large cohort whose educational needs will have to be met if Pakistan is
to extract positive demographic dividends. According to Mahmood (2029), barring accelerated improvement
Pakistan confronts a situation where 28.2 million of its citizens will be out of school in the year 2030.

The economic signs are not encouraging for the short to medium term either. Pakistan will have an
additional four million employrd youth by 2030 taking the total number to twenty-one million. The stock of
unemployment youth will have reached six million in 2030 unless unemployment is kept below 4 per cent, which
is virtually impossible on the term according to official estimates. The increased pace of urbanisation adds to the
conundrum as expectant youth will move to the cities to find livelihoods, only to be frustrated by the modest
absorptive capacity of Pakistani towns. The literature on the subject suggests that such a development encourages
urban youth radicalisation.

Simply put, Pakistan faces a monumental task in halting and then reversing the decline in the education
sector. Failure is not an option given that the state of education will determine Pakistan’s economic progress, its
overall societal outlook, magnitude of internal tensions, and most importantly, the state’s ability to provide citizens
with personal safety and an environment favorable to sustainable progress.

Stage I: Correcting the failure to provide. The ultimate goal for policymakers is to provide a level
playing field for students irrespective of their caste, creed, and location, family’s economic capacity and religion.
Not only must access to education improve, but it must be spread evenly across the entire citizenry. This will be
challenging as Pakistan’s present youth development statistics suggest high disparity across socio-economic
strata, schooling systems, and physical location. All future policies must remain cognizant of the explosive
ramifications of neglecting underprivileged citizens in peripheral areas.

Financial outlays for education must increase significantly in the coming years. Successive governments
have committed themselves to increasing spending on education but progress has been slower than planned. No
matter how politically challenging, education’s share as a proportion of GDP must be enhanced to at least the
developing country average in the immediate term. In addition, conscious effort must be undertaken to ensure a
better balance on spending between administrative and development expenditures within the sector.

Better governance and transparency are buzzwords repeated ad nauseam in discussions of institutional
reform. The challenge is great and lacks an immediate solution. But there is no alternative to generating the
political will and capacity for better management of the education sector and ensuring that educational allocations
are made efficiently. Institutional duplication and organisational inefficiencies need to be addressed across the
board. As a start, the ambiguities about the different roles of the Federal and Provincial governments in education
need to be mapped and clarified. Policy continuity is also essential.

As a complementary policy strand, there is need for greater empowerment of those with a direct stake in
education. The idea of establishing functional School Management Committees (SMCs) is correct provided they
are given the needed authority and independence to ensure that schools function, teachers are present, and students
attend regularly. The SMCs now in place are largely ineffectual.

Given that dropout and completion rates are significantly correlated to poverty, reduction in tuition fees
in public schools and increased allotment of need-based scholarships and free textbooks and uniforms should be
encouraged. The Punjab government undertook such a program with mixed results. While the program was
subsequently rolled back, its experience can be studied and improved upon as a similar initiative is launched across
Pakistan.

Conditional cash transfer programs have increasingly become popular and shown to raise school
enrolment and retention in a number of countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua and Brazil. Pakistan has
introduced a few demand size incentives such as involving communities in social service delivery but the explicit
use of cash transfers to ensure higher school attendance is largely missing. Moreover, the programs that do involve
communities are small relative to the size of the problem, focus on particular provinces, are not integrated, and
their targeting and administration is weak. International best practices could be used to improve Pakistan’s efforts
in this realm.

A positive development in recent years has been the mushrooming of non-elite private schools, especially
in Punjab and Sindh. These schools are playing an increasingly significant role in extending educational services
particularly in rural areas where the largest growth in private schools is occurring. Further encouragement of
private schools along with innovative public-private partnerships where the public sector is found wanting is a
desirable policy intervention.

Stage II: Correcting the failure to deliver quality. Qualitative improvements in education are bound
to lag behind quantitative gains but efforts must strive to keep this gap as narrow as possible. The key lies in
transforming the public school system and ensuring its uplift so that it can match its elite counterpart. Areas that
need attention include the development of new teaching methods that promote creative thinking, qualitative
benchmarks for student learning, and standards for teacher recruitment, among others. The concrete steps required
are well understood and rehearsed. The political will to implement them is often lacking and needs to be evolved.

Largely at the behest of donors, Pakistan has paid substantial attention to teacher professional
development. The effort should be reinforced from within. A step in the right direction has been made with the
establishment of the National Professional Standards for Teachers in Pakistan. Efforts must be made to ensure the
quality of teacher education and implementation of the standards.

In the short run, a stop-gap measure could entail setting up a program to bring in a significant number of
foreign teachers or those from Pakistan’s substantial diaspora in the West, especially ones trained to teach English
language and basic mathematics and sciences. These teachers could be placed across the various levels of public
schooling throughout the country.

To complement these efforts, stronger public-private partnerships have to be forged to help overcome
some of the capacity constraints in the public sector. The government has initiated programs like ‘adopt a school’
whereby non-government organisations are encouraged to take over management of public schools. There is
significant interest but the scope of such efforts is very limited at present. A well-crafted incentive structure needs
to be put in place and bureaucratic hurdles removed to encourage more non-government entities to consider
adopting schools.

The madrasah education system needs urgent reform to allow it to prepare students for modern
economies while retaining their faith-based focus. The agenda to transform the existing ones is oft expressed but
political constraints and fear of resistance have prevented the government from doing anything significant. A more
realistic alternative may be to set up parallel madrasahs run either by the public or private sector that utilises
teachers able to offer balanced theological study in combination with teaching modern subjects.

With regard to public sector education syllabi, the emphasis should be on revising textbooks with the
aim of reverting to the content used prior to Islamisation during the 1980s. The aim is not secularisation of the
curricula-as that would meet resistance from a deeply conservative society. Rather, the aim should be to remove
distortions of history and material that engenders extremist mindsets. Moreover, the curricular would benefit from
greater emphasis on ‘peace education’ and teaching that instills a strong civic sense.
 Finally, the government is encouraging private schools to offer 10 per cent of admissions to needy
students from underprivileged backgrounds. This is a step in the right direction and can go a long way in removing
the isolation of students among the three systems. The private sector must be urged to rigorously enforce this
regulation, which is not the case at present.

Stage III: Correcting the failure to provide livelihood. Pakistan’s principal weakness in economic
planning has been an overriding focus on high macroeconomic growth and not the quality or distributional effects
of that growth. The model has not been inclusive and it is only recently that pro-poor growth has become part of
mainstream policy discourse. Strong and sustained macroeconomic growth is imperative to increase the size of
national pie.to complement this however, initiatives geared to equitable income distribution need to be taken. This
also means providing job opportunities to the educated employment, many of whom come from disadvantaged
social backgrounds.

The government’s social safety net initiatives will remain central to its possibility to providing the
disenfranchised the requisite livelihood opportunities.it is encouraging to see an emphasis on employment
schemes and small scale business promotion by the present authorities. The allocation for such initiatives should
be further increased and the institutional shortcomings that continues to undermine these programs should be
corrected. Special efforts should be made to make these schemes transparent, perhaps by giving civil society a
formal role in monitoring and accountability.

Vocational training stands out an obvious venue to explore in order to improve opportunities for the
educated or poorly educated .while there has been significant donor and government attention, there are still just
a limited number of vocational training centres in urban areas while rural Pakistan lacks these facilities .Even
where they exist, they do not seem to have been instituted under any coherent policy framework. Moreover, the
quality of training is inadequate. Presently, there is lack of congruity between local industries and training
available at the institutes. Very little attempt has been initiated to involve the end users in the operation
,management, and program delivery as well as to align to course contents to the needs of the industry. The lack of
interaction industries and technical and vocational educational training (TVET) has therefore resulted in the
marginalisation of TVET institutions with employers demonstrating little interest in extend cooperation to the
institutions. There is an area where the donor community has relatively greater experience given its success in
other countries. It could treat this as a priority by coordinating its effects to correct stated shortcomings.

Perhaps the most executable option to ease Pakistan’s labour force burden in the next decade or two is
to find adequate opportunities for labour migration abroad. Pakistan has used this safety valve to good effect in
the past by sending a large number of its skilled and unskilled labour force across the world. While economic
constraints in the recipients countries and ‘extremist’ tag attached to Pakistan in global perception has dented the
traditional outflow of labour, the international community could help Pakistan fresh avenues for labour absorption.

To enhance prospects, Pakistan’s vocational training could be tailored to the future demand of various countries
projected to have a labour shortage. Friendly could consider special arrangements to allow inflow of employable
Pakistanis.
Education remains central to Pakistan’s recovery. Given the current circumstances, hoping for return to
stability without improving education substantially is a misnomer. The challenge confronting Pakistan is a
daunting one. The state must begin to see education as a right, not a favour to its people. Even then, suggested
policy measures cannot bring change overnight. The next decade or so ought to be approached as a corrective
period during which the essential policies will be put in place. Progress will likely be frustratingly slow but if
executed properly these steps will prepare the ground for more accelerated and visible improvement in the decade
that follows. Should this effort be made, the Pakistan of 2030 has every prospect of being more and better
educated, with its society empowered by a better sense of civic responsibility – a country able to provide job
opportunities to all its citizens. This, in turn, would serve as the essential base on which economic progress and
prosperity can be predicated.

NOTE: This has been taken from the chapter Education as a Strategic Imperative by Shanza Khan and Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan Beyond
the Crisis State, written by Maleeha Lodhi.