Imagine spending sixteen years in classrooms, surviving examinations, earning a university degree, and dreaming of a better future to only discover that the economy has no place for you.
This is the reality confronting thousands of young Pakistanis today.
As Peter Drucker famously observed, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Pakistan is a country that offers a disturbing paradox the trend is that the number of graduates has been and will be expanding whereas the opportunities are not. This contradiction is more exposed than ever with the recently announced Federal Budget 2026-27. Although the government has raised its spending on education, as well as various young-oriented programs, it has not bothered much to address a much more significant issue of what these young individuals will do.
Degrees are not a problem in Pakistan. It lacks a dearth of demand of such degrees.
As Peter Drucker famously observed, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Policymakers have been rejoicing over years with escalating enrolments, new universities, and rising graduation rates. These are significant accomplishments. Education is however not an end itself. Its practical worth is that it would boost productivity, invention and monetary development. The trend in the budget is a familiar one. Funds are still exercised towards education and the youth programs but there is not much sign of a coherent approach to develop the sectors that can absorb such an increasing stock of talent. In Economics, it is increasing the supply of skilled labor without generating adequate demand of the same. The real test of an effective education system is not the number of graduates it gives out but the number of opportunities it gives graduates to make a difference in the society.
Consider artificial intelligence. AI programs are quickly adopted in universities with an understanding that the technology is transforming the world economies. But the most recent budget does not provide any significant national project to develop AI research ecosystem, innovation centers, and hi-tech industries. Our AI graduates’ rate is much higher than the opportunity rate.
The healthcare field follows the same with the story. Every year, thousands of medical graduates are coming to the job market, and the healthcare system has not been able to keep up with them. The number of new hospitals, research centers and special facilities are not enough compared to the needs of the country. This has led to poor opportunities of many young doctors who have undergone years of intensive training.
The same thing is a dilemma facing engineers. A country sufficiently concerned with industrial revolution would be sucking up engineering skills into manufacturing, power, infrastructure and technology. In its place, the growth of industries is still slow, placing a large number of engineers unemployed or scouting opportunities in other countries.
The most ironic thing maybe is that at the same time Pakistan is grappling with inflation, bad fiscal health and poor productivity, thousands of economics graduates who learnt policy analysis and decision-making based on evidence continue to have little to nothing to do with the actual policymaking process. The effects go past the unemployment rates. Pakistan is among the youngest nations in the globe with an almost two thirds of the total population being below the age of thirty. This youth bulge is often referred to as demographic dividend. A demographic dividend, however, is not self-evident. It can only pay out dividend when youngsters are gainfully employed. Otherwise, it will place itself in danger of becoming a demographic burden.
What Pakistani badly needs is an education strategy that considers universities admissions, workforce prediction and industry growth to be connectors. Education policy cannot and must not be independent of economic policy. The two have to go together.
The writer is a lecturer of economics at IQRA University