February 25, 2007

OF late, there has been a lot of concern regarding the low literacy rate in the country. Government functionaries, the bureaucracy, the NGO sector, civil society and donors have expressed serious reservations on the current state of education in Pakistan. But for all that, has something tangible been done to improve the state of education? Yes, if you count the minister’s recent suggestion that that the first hour should be deployed by all teachers and students in government schools for cleaning up the premises.

No one ever talks about the quality of education. A status quo is silently maintained on the issue. Anyone who can simply sign his/her name is considered literate by definition of the government. No wonder the army of illiterates, without any marketable skills, are getting more and more jobs. The fact of the matter is that education and poverty are inter-related. Lack of the former increases the latter. Many generations have struggled to free themselves of the poverty trap, which by the government’s own reckoning has swallowed up 35 per cent of the country’s population.

Our planners have focussed their attention on a free market economy, macro economic stabilisation, attracting foreign investment, privatisation and enhancing foreign exchange reserves. In this mad rush to achieve these targets, they have perhaps forgotten that human resource development is also the key to achieving all the above-mentioned objectives. An educated and skilled workforce is an asset to any country struggling to improve the condition of the common people.

Education is one of the elementary factors of development and it has rightly been called “the highest-return investment available in the developing world”, as no state can accomplish sustainable economic development without extensive investment in the human capital. It enhances their level of understanding, develops the quality of their lives and brings broad collective remunerations to individuals and as well as society. It raises their output and ingenuity and promotes entrepreneurship and technological advances. Additionally, it plays a very critical role in securing economic and social evolution and improving income distribution.

Prior to the 19th century, methodical investment in human capital was not considered important in any country. There was no concept of investing on schooling and on-the-job training. However, it began to change significantly during the present century with the application of science to the development of new goods and more efficient methods of production. It was initially started in the UK and then spread to other countries.

During the 20th century, education, skills and the acquisition of knowledge became the decisive determinants of a nation’s productivity. One can even call it the “age of human capital” in the sense that the primary determinant of a country’s standard of living is how well it succeeds in developing and utilising the potential of its population.

The concept of “human capital” was made popular by Gracy Becker. In his view, it is similar to physical means of production and one can invest in it (via education, training, medical treatment) and one’s income depends on the rate of return on the human capital one owns. It is substitutable but not transferable like land, labour or fixed capital.

Studies have shown that investments in human capital are indispensable for nourishing economic growth over a period of time. The law of diminishing returns suggests that investments in physical capital and land, sooner or later, will fail to result in economic expansion. Heavy investment in the training of workers and a better educated labour force are given tribute for much of the growth in per capita incomes and economic efficiency in countries like the US, UK, Japan, etc.

I asked Tahira Abdullah, a development worker and human rights activist based in Islamabad, about the concept, she said: “Although it is a standard term in economics, principally I object to the use of the term ‘human capital’ as it tends to dehumanise and commodify homo sapiens into a form of ‘capital’ like money, goods, commodities, bricks and mortar, etc. A slightly better term is ‘human resources’ although that, too, is quite utilitarian.”

According to development experts, Pakistan is a paradox. The country has a well-educated and entrepreneurial diaspora scattered around the globe. Its professional elite are at par with those in the developed world. The country is blessed with fertile land watered by ever flowing rivers and it inherited the world’s largest irrigation system from the British. Even its per capita growth — an averaged 2.2 per cent per year from 1950-1999 — has not been so bad. And yet it underperforms on most of the social indicators on the Human Development Index (HDI) such as infant mortality, gender discrimination and education enrollment. It compels many planners to call it growth without development.However, it is clear from the experiences of other developing countries that sustained economic growth and poverty reduction cannot take place merely on the strength of economic policies. Political stability, social cohesion, supporting institutions, a sound education system and good governance are equally important in this regard and above all, human development and economic development are highly interlinked.

Explaining the cause of the under development of human capital in Pakistan, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, assistant executive director, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, says: “Social injustice is the root cause of this dilemma. There ought to be two strategies, one is building human capital and second is to have a plan to use that capital. In other words, providing an opportunity where talent may be absorbed.” Unfortunately, we kept on producing degree holders without assessing the market demand. The result is a great deal of unemployed degree holders who cannot get any placement and have to rely on unfair means, he adds.

Abdullah cites many reasons for the deprivation and lack of progress and development of human beings in Pakistan: “Poverty, especially among women; feudalism and tribalism; patriarchy that keeps women subordinate, subservient and backward; lack of access to health and education; opportunity costs of educating girls vs boys; lack of basic infrastructure; lack of access to justice; lack of opportunities for upward social mobility due to a stifling political environment; lack of commitment of elected representatives to improve the system; political prejudices, leading to uneven and unbalanced development in geographic terms and lastly, bad governance, riddled with corruption, incompetence and vested interests.”

The World Bank, in its landmark report titled The Wealth of Nations that studied nearly 190 states, points out that 16 per cent of the global wealth comes from physical capital (buildings, roads, machinery), 20 per cent from natural capital (minerals, forests and other resources). However, nearly 64 per cent of the riches of nations are human capital. It clearly shows that human capital is the most significant and treasured form of national wealth.

Our planners, day in and day out, make statements of changing the fortunes of the country by investing in human resources. They give the example of the Asian Tigers, who have changed the destiny of their people in a single generation; however, they forget that South Korea invests $130 per person every year in basic education. Malaysia spends $128, India invests $9, Pakistan $3 and Bangladesh $2. These statistics clearly show our national priorities.

Dr Nabeel Zuberi at the department of sociology, University of Karachi, points out that “In our country, human resources are not considered as an asset but rather a problem. This is the reason that there is no significant investment in this sector, either by the government or by families.” Education has been considered as an important need, however, in the hierarchy of requirements it gets less attention and investment, he adds.

According to Unesco’s Education for All Monitoring Report 2007: “Pakistan has experienced a rise in its illiterate population and ranked second among the countries of the world with the highest number of out-of-school children.”

The lesson of the Cold War rivalry is not that capitalism triumphed over communism but that political and military power if not supported by economic strength and well being of the common people is unsustainable. The Soviet Union buckled because it could not feed its people; all its weaponry and nuclear devices did not make any difference. And when it collapsed, all the king’s horses and men could not put it together again. It went into the dustbin of history as a failed state.

According to economists, theoretically, there are many reasons that compel the governments to promote human development. Firstly, human development is an end in itself that needs no further justification. Secondly, it is an approach to higher productivity, thirdly, it reduces human productivity, by lowering the desired family size and fourthly, human development is good for physical environment in the sense that the impact of population growth and density is injurious for the environment due to deforestation, desertification and soil erosion. Fifthly, reduced poverty contributes to a vigorous civil society, democracy and greater social stability. Lastly, it reduces civil disturbances and increases political stability.

Pakistan has suffered on the literacy front due to many factors but the most important is dominance by elites who do not support human capital investment in the masses. Oligarchy opposes widespread education because educated people are more likely to demand political power, that is, democracy. Explaining this phenomenon, Dr Mohammad Ali Siddiqui, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamdard University, says : “The attitude of the elite towards the marginalised is to keep them dependant and uneducated in order to rule them.”

In this regard, he quoted Quaid-i-Azam’s speech in the Imperial Legislative Council — March 19, 1912 — to raise money for the compulsory elementary education of the Indians. He was opposed by two Muslim landlord members (Nawab Abdul Majid and Mohd Shafi of Punjab) on grounds that it would make Indians agitators and socialists. This historical fact explains the mindset of the ruling classes which, unfortunately, has not changed, he adds.

Dr Asad Saeed, Director of Collective for Social Science Research, elucidates that in order to make education more universal, there is need to prioritise it. He says: “There is an extensive network of public school system and what is required is to upgrade the standard, train teachers properly and revise the curriculum so that it becomes more learners’ friendly. All these things are attainable but, regrettably, no priority has been attached to it.” Moreover, there are sinister motives like Islamising the whole education system, creating legitimacy for Jihad or developing anti-India sentiments, he adds. “We have to revise our curriculum to make it more objective, scientific and secular and, finally, we have to allocate more resources for the education sector.”

The government has finally woken up and formulated a new policy. The Prime Minister recently announced that in 2007-08, the education budget will be increased to four per cent of the GDP. It will be an enormous increase from the existing 2.7 per cent that amounts to Rs160 billion. However, the government should formulate clear-cut policies and frame work so that these additional funds can be used judiciously. As Dr Suleri has rightly pointed out, “A change in paradigm is required; we still consider material things as asset in our balance sheets whereas human beings are considered liabilities. Thus, the mindset has been developed that spending on strengthening liabilities becomes a waste of capital. Unless this thinking is reversed, it would be extremely difficult to build human capital in Pakistan.”

In the end, it can be safely concluded that in order to develop the human capital, the government should sincerely and decisively try to safeguard the interests of the disadvantaged and marginalised sections of population. It should not act as a “garrison state” and try to change the oligarchic model of governance as well. Economic growth, increase in per capita income, and the trickle-down theory are not enough to bring meaningful changes in the lives of the teeming million. Distributive justice and pursuing pro-people policies and providing the masses an opportunity to change their destiny through quality education and training is needed.

The writer works for Dawn

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