Health and education: Pakistan aims high but wouldn’t pay for the flight

Report says Pakistan reneging on commitments to increase spending on health, education.

ISLAMABAD:

The government on Tuesday passed the ambitious “Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2012” that calls for implementation of free primary education.

An internal audit report, however, reveals that in terms of spending, the government is far from heading in that ambitious direction.

Despite its constitutional, legal and international commitments, the government has not been able to double the budgetary allocations to education and health from their 2005 levels, says a draft report of the Auditor General for 2011-2012.

Commitments

Pakistan is a signatory to the Millennium Declaration and the Dakar Framework, both of which call for free and compulsory education for all till primary level, amongst other goals.

The goal is also enshrined in Article 25(a) of the country’s constitution which asks the state “to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.”

According to the audit report, sub-section 3(a) of the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act 2005 also demanded that “budgetary allocation to education and health be doubled from the existing level, in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), during the next ten years.”

Where do we stand?

While literacy rates have improved slightly, Pakistan has not been able to meet its medium term targets and is likely to miss the Millennium Development Goals as well.

According to World Bank reports, public spending on education stood at 2.3% of GDP in 2005, making it binding on the government to raise it to 4.6% of GDP till 2015.

The spending peaked to 2.9% in 2008, but fell again to 2.4% in 2010.

In 2012, however, estimates of budgetary allocation to education, derived from provincial and federal budget documents, show that it hovers at an all-time low – around 1.8% of GDP. Health expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, stands around 0.75 in 2012.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Pakistan lags behind other regional countries including India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka in both health and education indicators.

Despite low investment, Pakistan has shown marked improvement in certain indicators. Life expectancy has risen to over 65 years, from 62 in 1995; Fertility rates are down to 3.4 births per woman, from 5.4 in 1995; mortality rate for children under 5 years are down to 73.7 per 1,000 live births, from 109.8 in 1995.

In education, literacy rates amongst adults in 2008 was 55.5%, up from 42.7% in 1998 while the same amongst youth, i.e. people aged between 15 and 24, was 71.1%, up from 55.3% in 1998. This was achieved despite a meagre 2 to 3% of GDP being spent on education per year.

Encouraging as the trends may be, a comparison with regional countries is sobering. Despite their internal issues, all of Pakistan’s regional counterparts are galloping ahead in health and education sectors.

Recommendations

The draft audit report has recommended that government increase expenditures vis-à-vis targeted effective investment in education and health sectors. The audit report says the finance ministry did not reply to its observations on low budgetary allocation to health and education.

That may, however, be a tricky proposition since both sectors have been devolved to provinces following the promulgation of the 18th Amendment.

A spokesman for the ministry of finance did not reply, despite being repeatedly approached by The Express Tribune over the last month, for the ministry’s reaction to the report.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2012.