Daily Times

How can a country develop if the people living in it are not developed? Development research has clearly proved that the only sustainable development in any country is human development. The UN publishes a Human Development Index (HDI) report and places countries on its ranking every year. Pakistan has been placed 146th out of 187 countries and is not only lower than most in the world but, tragically, the lowest in South Asia as well. All other neighbouring countries have moved up in one year while Pakistan has failed to improve its position. The shocking facts are that Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives and Bangladesh have already surpassed Pakistan. Nepal was at 157 but has moved up to 145 in one year and Sri Lanka has moved from 92 to 77.

To be categorised as developed, developing or underdeveloped depends on achievements in per capita income, GDP, industrial growth, etc. However, behind all these numbers is the ability of the human resource of a country to produce these numbers. There are many countries in the world with few natural resources but have become a force to reckon with; Singapore is an example that has only its people to invest in and has become an exemplary HDI success. There are many countries that are blessed with many natural resources but have not developed; Pakistan is an example. Top ranked countries on the HDI include Norway, Switzerland, the US, Australia, etc, and it is no coincidence that the same countries also lead on the economic and political fronts.

The terrible state of education in Pakistan is a major reason why we are lagging behind many of the countries that were way below us in ranking and have now moved forward. Year after year, every government declares its intention of making education a priority but that remains just a slogan. Starting from the education budget that is hardly two percent of GDP, the quality of teaching to basic facilities like boundary walls, toilets, etc, education seems to be an orphan stranded in no man’s land, where the federal government says the 18th amendment has made it a provincial responsibility, and the provinces cry about the lack of resources from the Centre. There are 25 million children out of school in Pakistan and 70 percent of them are girls. This means half schoolgoing age children are deprived of their constitutional right to free education. There are 8,252 ghost schools that appear only on paper and are totally non-functional, receiving funds for services they do not provide. Some 70 percent of these ghost schools are in Sindh. The government is aware of them but does nothing as they feed some convenient pockets. Teachers are hired and posted on a political basis with little regard to merit. This results in a terrible quality of education being delivered in public institutions, leading to a big disincentive for parents to send their children to school. Massive funding is done for teacher training without any accountability on improving teaching standards. This appalling standard of education in public institutions in comparison with private institutions creates the major difference between the haves and have-nots. Children who do get to these private schools find it difficult to measure up to market standards and, thus, getting the right job even after a reasonable degree becomes an even bigger challenge.

Most governments feel that spending on education is a long-term game that is too intangible to really show off their performance in the five years of their term. Thus the focus remains on short-term, high visibility projects like roads, highways, buses and trains that have a physical presence, seen and video captured, rather than changing and educating the masses on a long-term basis. Pakistan’s low position in the HDI ranking owes itself to this short fix mindset. Imagine: the total federal budget for education is Rs 85 billion, while a single metro train project will cost Rs 165 billion. The trains will transport 0.25 million people while the same budget would help half the children in Pakistan who are out of school to be educated. The preference for spending on roads and not on humans is what is known as inhuman development.

Life expectancy is another measure of HDI and Pakistan has failed to increase its life expectancy for the last few years beyond 65 years. Health and quality of life are major factors that have retarded growth in this area. Pollution and contaminated water cause disease breakouts and then the lack of health facilities makes it impossible for the average person to live much beyond 60.

Pakistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the region where nearly every 20 minutes a mother dies in delivering a child because of lack of health facilities. Again, hospital development and maintenance are rare. Those that have been built are under threat of being cut to size due to the mania of building highways. A prime example of this is Lady Wellingdon Hospital in Lahore. It is the oldest hospital in Pakistan, treating 300,000 patients annually, mostly belonging to the really needy category. It is also one of the largest doctor training hospitals attached to King Edward Medical College. One fine day, the government decided that the hospital needed to be demolished as it was blocking the view of the Shahi Mosque and that a park and highway would be built instead. Concerned citizens and doctors took the case to court and managed to save the hospital but had to give some land belonging to the hospital to accommodate the grandiose road-building scheme of the Punjab government.

The loud claims of making Pakistan an “Asian tiger” in the 1990s have now turned to making Pakistan into a China or a Turkey but modelling oneself on these countries does not just mean borrowing a bus or train system; it means modelling their human development system on them, where these countries, despite having huge populations, have invested in making them educated and skilful enough to make them true assets. With the knowledge and information economy prevailing in this era, the only sustainable advantage any nation will have is the quality of its human resource. Educate them, empower them and employ them, and they will take you to the top as the best competitive weapons. Leave them ignorant, unhealthy and unemployed, and they will turn into a liability. The day leaders understand that brick power does not grow and only brainpower has the ability to grow and develop, will be the day when Pakistan’s HDI rankings will cease to fall.

The writer is an analyst and columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com