Uneducated and unwell

Pakistan's Economic Survey 2025-26 offers a useful yardstick to gauge the state of the country's health and education sectors over the past year. The assessment, however, offers little cause for celebration. Beneath the government's claims of gradual progress, Pakistan continues to rank among the poorest performers in South Asia on key human development indicators while spending less than 1% of GDP on both health and education. The survey is therefore a record of what has been neglected.

While life expectancy has increased modestly to 67.8 years, it remains nearly five years below the South Asian average. One in six Pakistanis suffers from undernourishment and more than a third of children under five continue to face stunting. Equally concerning is the country's struggle to provide basic sanitation and safe drinking water to large segments of the population. To be fair, some progress has been made: immunisation coverage has improved, neonatal and infant mortality rates have declined, and the number of doctors has increased. Yet the gains remain incremental and insufficient.

The education sector presents a similarly mixed picture. Literacy has increased from 61% to 63% and the proportion of out-of-school children has declined. Rural female literacy has shown encouraging improvement, suggesting that targeted interventions can produce results. Yet these gains have occurred against the backdrop of steadily declining public investment. Education expenditure has fallen from 1.9% of GDP in 2019-20 to a mere 0.8% today. Such cuts inevitably have consequences. It is difficult to speak of educational reform when basic facilities are still absent from thousands of schools across the country.

As the government sets its priorities for the coming fiscal year, focus must shift from short-term economic firefighting to long-term human development. Health and education should not be treated as expenditure to be minimised but as investments essential for national prosperity.