Whenever there arises a crisis, immediately begins the pursuit to mitigate it. And often that pursuit results in a paradigm shift that means letting go of the existing practice and replacing it with a new way. The whole world has accepted the fact that health and education are the most important and basic necessities for any nation and are the driving force behind economic growth, development, peace and happiness. And so the countries have achieved development by prioritizing these two sectors. This shift towards higher expenditure on health and education has already occurred in the developed world but yet remains to be seen in Pakistan.
For over a decade, Pakistan’s health expenditure has remained less than 1% of the GDP. Our education spending is 2.4% of the GDP. These figures are way too low for achieving the sustainable development goals where health and education are at the top. On the human development index which is formulated by taking health , education and standard of living as its indicators, Pakistan ranks 152 out of 189 countries. The bleak picture that this scenario poses is not the only gloomy fact instead the doomed future awaiting us if the situations remains the same is a lot scarier.
The COVID-19 again teaches us that if there is anything that can cope with this global pandemic that is a flexible health care system and widespread high level education. If we had a better health care system we could have taken advantage of the fact that the virus arrived in Pakistan after causing frenzy in much of the world and so in the meantime we could have been prepared and alert with early testing’s at borders and airports with better quarantine facilities etc. Instead we are at the stage where not only are we failing to protect our citizens but also our health care workers are at high risk with reports coming in about the hiking numbers of infected medics.
If we had a better health care system we could have taken advantage of the fact that the virus arrived in Pakistan after causing frenzy in much of the world and so in the meantime we could have been prepared and alert with early testing’s at borders and airports with better quarantine facilities etc
Additionally, with widespread education it would have been much easier for us to practice social distancing and self-quarantine. Ironically, our state of affairs is such that there still exists a proportion of our population that believes that coronavirus is a conspiracy. Furthermore, research and finding a cure for the virus can only be made possible with high level scientific education which we unfortunately lack. In spite of that there exists huge potential in our people which has been largely ignored. The recent example is of the researchers who formed much affordable and less time taking COVID testing kits. If only this potential could have been coupled with affordable and quality education for all, we would have achieved the unimaginable.
Moving towards the economic impacts of higher spending on health and education one finds that these sectors are undeniably the key to development. The productivity of the labor force is directly linked to the health care facilities , the better the health the higher the labor productivity and higher is the GDP and economic growth. Similarly higher education means more skilled labor, more invention and innovation, higher entrepreneurial activity , increased investment lower unemployment and poverty and thereby higher growth.
Pakistan remains one of the unfortunate countries where the health and education remain highly ignored sectors. Successive government claims to rectify the situation but upon coming to power they either do nothing about it or further slacken the already meagre spending on these sectors.
Just like every crisis teaches us lessons and leads to paradigm shifts they also warn us about much dire consequences if the necessary precautions are not taken . For instance the Great Depression of the 1930’s replaced the classical theory with the Keynesian. Had it not been replaced it, had the classical’s view that ”supply creates its own demand and that the market will always be adjusted via an invisible hand” still pertained we would have witnessed an even greater depression. And so if we still fail to see the importance of these two sectors we would be in for a much bigger and more devastating crisis. So lets hope that COVID-19 will serve as the final warning we need in order to shift our priorities via enhanced health and education expenditure.
The writer is an economist, environmentalist, feminist, an animal rights activist and a poet