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IF parents are a child’s first teachers, then supporting parents and young children may be one of the most important investments Pakistan can make.
On many Saturday afternoons some years ago, I would leave my corporate responsibilities behind and spend time as a volunteer counsellor at the Juvenile Detention Centre at Karachi Central Jail. The boys I met came from different backgrounds and circumstances. Some had made poor decisions. Others had been dealt difficult hands in life. Yet as I listened to their stories over the course of a year, I was struck by a recurring thought: society had intervened far too late. By the time these children entered the juvenile justice system, countless opportunities for positive intervention had already been missed. Stable family support, nurturing environments, positive role models and consistent care had often been absent. The cost of repairing lives at that stage was immense — for the individual, their family and society.
That experience stayed with me. Years later, through my work in education and social entrepreneurship at The Aman Foundation, I encountered another powerful idea through Teach For Pakistan’s emphasis on teachers as leaders. No education system can outperform the quality of its teachers. But over time, I came to realise something even more important: before every teacher comes a parent.
Parents are a child’s first teachers.
Long before a child enters a classroom, they are learning language, trust, empathy, resilience and emotional regulation. The foundations of human development are laid not in schools or workplaces, but in homes and caregiving environments during the earliest years of life. Yet public policy often focuses on institutions while paying comparatively little attention to parents and early years care. The quality of parenting is not simply a private family matter. It is a national development issue.
Research by Unicef, the WHO and Harvard’s Centre on the Developing Child has demonstrated that the earliest years of life are critical for brain development, learning capacity and lifelong well-being. According to Harvard researchers, more than a million neural connections are formed every second during early childhood.
Pakistan’s own indicators underscore the urgency. According to Unicef, nearly 40 per cent of Pakistani children under five are stunted. Millions enter school without the cognitive, language and socio-emotional foundations needed to thrive. Human capital is not built at age 18; it begins before birth and accelerates during the first 1,000 days.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is undergoing profound social change. Urbanisation, rising living costs and the shift from extended to nuclear family structures mean that many parents can no longer rely on traditional caregiving arrangements. Yet support systems for parents and young children remain fragmented. This matters because childcare is not just a family issue. It is also an economic issue.
World Bank data shows that Pakistan’s female labour force participation rate remains among the lowest in Asia. For many families, access to reliable childcare is the difference between participating in the workforce and leaving it. Unlocking even a fraction of this untapped talent pool would have profound implications for household incomes, productivity and economic growth.
The benefits of investing in childcare, however, extend far beyond supporting working parents.
The benefits of investing in childcare, however, extend far beyond supporting working parents. International organisations including the ILO, UN Women and the World Bank increasingly describe childcare and early childhood development as generating a ‘triple dividend’. First, it enables greater workforce participation, particularly among women. Second, it creates jobs, especially for women working in the care economy. Third, it improves lifelong outcomes for children through better health, education and future earnings.
Few policy interventions simultaneously support families, create jobs and strengthen the next generation. Childcare is one of them. This matters even more because of Pakistan’s demographic profile. According to the UN Population Prospects data approximately 38m children in Pakistan are under the age of six. In effect, under-six children are nearly 15pc of our population, amongst the highest proportion of any country in the world! These children will become Pakistan’s future workers, entrepreneurs, teachers, healthcare professionals and leaders. If Pakistan is serious about building its human capital, there are few investments more consequential than those made in the earliest years of life.
Around the world, governments increasingly view childcare as economic infrastructure. Canada’s childcare reforms were justified not merely as social policy but as economic policy. Singapore has invested heavily in childcare quality and workforce development, while countries as diverse as Chile, Brazil and South Africa have expanded childcare support because of its demonstrated impact on employment and child development.
Pakistan cannot afford to wait for decades of incremental progress. Community-based childcare, caregiver certification, employer-supported daycare and public-private partnerships can deliver meaningful impact without requiring Nordic-sized budgets. The economic case is compelling. Research led by Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has shown that high-quality early childhood programmes generate some of the highest returns available in public policy. Associated studies have estimated annual rates of return of up to 13pc and benefits exceeding costs by more than seven times through higher earnings, improved health and reduced social costs over a lifetime.
As policymakers consider budgetary measures to strengthen economic growth, workforce participation and human capital development, childcare deserves to also be viewed as economic infrastructure, as smart economic investment that must be incentivised and taxes rationalised.
Ultimately, however, the conversation is even larger than that. It is about how we think about our children and the citizenry of tomorrow.
The foundations of human capital are laid much earlier — in homes, families and caregiver relationships that shape a child’s earliest experiences. Pakistan’s future competitiveness will depend not only on the roads we build, the industries we develop or the investments we attract. It will depend on whether we give every child the opportunity to develop their full potential from the very beginning. If parents are a child’s first teachers, then investing in parents and young children is not merely socioeconomic policy; it is fundamental to the future of our nation.
The writer is co-founder/CEO of a Pakistan-based organisation dedicated to childcare development.
Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2026
