The growth ingredients

As any cook will tell you, the secret of baking a good cake is having all the right ingredients. The giant cake that is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), has literally thousands of ingredients with one of the less obvious but absolutely vital being — knowledge. The western arm of the CPEC is receiving considerable attention — as it must. The route passes through some of the least developed parts of the country, to say nothing of some of the most unstable in terms of security. The other routes are to a degree plug-and-play, but there is some scratch-building to do in the west. Thus it is that we welcome the announcement by the Planning, Development and Reform Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, that universities in Fata, Zhob and Gwadar are to become functional in the current year.

For the CPEC to provide maximum benefit, there needs to be an educated populace to live and work in the places where it impacts, a populace that is geared for the knowledge economy and has the technical and vocational skills that are essential if development is to be anything more than a handy political catchphrase. Once the engineers have gone home and projects are commissioned down the line, it will be for local populations to provide the human motive power to keep them going. Education at the upper levels has long been neglected in these areas; and those aspiring to a university education have had limited choices, often far from home. Those choices are about to expand. The CPEC, if completed in its entirety, is truly a game changer for Pakistan, but only if there is the investment in the human capital that is its beneficiary and legatee is made. The preservation of the status quo is a road to nowhere. Pakistan has to change in a myriad of ways and the CPEC will be catalytic in that respect. The education of those along its route can ultimately contribute to stability and prosperity. This is the largest cake in the national oven. Bake it well and Pakistan will be a happier, healthier and richer nation.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2016.

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