Development sans education?

Continuing down the path of underfunding critical sectors does not bode well for Pakistan

The government has formed a National Development Council (NDC), helmed by the Prime Minister, to accelerate economic growth and improve interprovincial and regional coordination.

The NDC — which will have chief ministers of all four provinces as its members, besides the Azad Kashmir Prime Minister, the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister and ministers for foreign affairs, finance, commerce, and planning and development — will also have to set policies and chalk out strategies for development.

The council was initially notified last week, on June 13 to be exact, but the cabinet had not granted formal approval until Tuesday. The hope is for the body to help put the sputtering economy on the right track before the patience of the people runs out.

Curiously, even though development is a part of the body’s mandate, it has no representation from the health or education sectors — both keys to human development — but does have the army chief as one of its members, in a move that is unprecedented indeed.

The relegation of health and education is, however, unsurprising for anyone who has been paying attention to the PTI-led government’s deprioritisation of these sectors in terms of funding and other support.

Both the important sectors saw their budgets slashed after the incumbent government failed to get anywhere close to meeting their funding allocations for the current year.

Further, the council also has no representation for the environment or climate change, despite the fact that the country’s susceptibility to the phenomenon is among the highest in the world, and ignoring the issue could render any development plans an exercise in futility.

The focus on the abstract promise of ending corruption is irreparably corrupting our already-broken health and education systems.

Lack of education and vocational skills, coupled with a serious lack of opportunities in the country, is widely believed to be one of the reasons that Pakistan has a relatively low employment rate.

But as market needs change to require some education for even the most basic of jobs, continuing down the path of underfunding critical sectors does not bode well for anyone.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2019.

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