The District Education Rankings 2016 revealed on Tuesday that 82 percent of Pakistan’s government schools are primary schools. Needless to say, this statistic is cause for concern as it points to the unfortunate reality that Pakistan is grossly under-equipped when it comes to schools of higher education. The researchers who worked on the District Education Rankings attributed this phenomenon to political hirings, which flooded government schools with primary school teachers, which in turn led to an increase in schools for them to teach in. Moreover, since these political hirings were usually for personnel who were not well-qualified, they could only be hired to teach in primary schools. While the brazen use of patronage politics to over-staff schools is lamentable in itself, the fact that new hirings could only be made in primary schools points to the broader problem of well-qualified human resource in Pakistan. Unfortunately, Pakistan is locked in a vicious, self-defeating cycle in which lack of higher education institutes lead to under-qualified individuals who in turn add to the scarcity of well-qualified individuals needed for running institutes of higher education. Pakistani government has long adopted the policy of increasing primary education to increase literacy rate. While it is true that primary education is important as it provides the entry point for higher education, nevertheless, singular focus on primary education fails to produce qualified citizens needed for Pakistan to move forward. Such measures mostly serve as cosmetic attempts to portray development in easily captured statistics rather than achieving it in substance. It seems that the policy of government has been centred on quick fixes, which completely neglect addressing the real problems. The curse of capturing statistically measurable performance has also led to a lack of emphasis on the quality of education. Not only do Pakistani public schools lack good teachers, but they also teach a badly devised curriculum through horribly written textbooks. This defeats the purpose of education altogether as nothing more than rote learners are produced who do not have the ability to put their education to use in the practical world. In effect, qualification gets rendered to a mere affirmation of degree title without actually reforming the individual. This needs to be addressed if competent citizens are to be produced who can steer the country in the right direction. This can only be achieved via a qualitative shift in the education policy of the state. Following the 18th amendment to the constitution, education and curriculum has become a provincial prerogative, and hence provincial governments need to reanalyse their education policy. The abysmal state of provincial textbooks points to the fact that provincial textbook boards are grossly incompetent in producing quality textbooks. Hence, they should look towards reputable foreign publishers and come to an arrangement with them through which their books can be reprinted in Pakistan at subsidised rates. Unless the content of the books is made better, students in Pakistan’s public schools would always remain disadvantaged. Simultaneously, talented individuals need to be drawn towards the education sector particularly Pakistan’s public schools. This could be done if they are provided attractive salary packages along with investment in school infrastructure. This is essential to fill the void of competent teachers both at the primary and the secondary level. Hence, a twofold policy is required to fix Pakistan’s education system as teachers and curriculum both need to be of good quality for education to be effective. *