ISLAMABAD: Successive governments in Pakistan have failed to allocate four per cent of Gross Development Product (GDP) for education.

“In the three budgets that the federal and provincial governments have passed in the current term, the total quantum of increase in spending has been 154 billion rupees. In the remaining two budgets of these assemblies, they will need to increase the education budget cumulatively, more than three times the increase they achieved in the first three budgets,” nongovernmental organisation Alif Ailaan said in a report released on Thursday.

The report noted that to bring the education expenditure to 4 per cent of the GDP in 2018, the expected expenditure in 2017-18 would need to be 1,219 billion. “This means that Pakistan will require a cumulative increase in spending of at least 485 billion rupees,” the report said.

Repeatedly, the government has pledged to gradually increase the budget for education sector, however as in reality, spending on education remains low.

The report said that in 2013-14, the country’s education sector recieved 2.59 percent of GDP, in 2014-15, 2.62 percent of GDP was allocated for education and in the current financial year this sector recieved 2.68 percent of GDP.

“During the past three years, from this government’s first budget to the current budget, a total increase in allocation of over 154 billion rupees has been seen. This has generated a small, but relatively significant increase in terms of education allocations as a percentage of GDP, partly because the GDP has been growing these two years,” the report said.

Alif Alaan Manager Salman Naveed Khan told Dawn that to achieve a target of allocating 4 percent of the GDP by 2018, the government has to allocate a large chunk of budget outlay for education.

“Based on allocations of the past three years I do not think the government will achieve the target,” he said.

Mr Khan added that for the current financial year, the federal government allocated 97.88 billion rupees for education. “To achieve the set target, the federal government has to increase spending on education to 243.8 billion rupees,” he said.

When asked about provinces, he said that during the last three years provincial governments allocated substantial portions of their budget to education.

However, Mr Khan said, that they are still not close to the target. “Currently, all provinces have allocated 635.96 billion rupees towards education, for achieving the target they have to increase the budget to 975 billion by 2018,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2015

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