Spending on health and education has never been a priority for Pakistani governments, leading to a miniscule allocation of the budget towards the social sectors over the years.
With the implementation of the 18th amendment and the evolution of these sectors (from the centre) to the provinces from June 2011, the federal government has been relieved of the worry to bear the burden of the sick and the illiterate.
As it stands, Pakistan finds itself at the bottom of the list of countries which allocate the lowest amount of their budget to education – less than 1.5 per cent of total outlay on an average.
For the outgoing fiscal year 2011-12, the government had allocated Rs40 billion for health and education sectors combined. The set-aside sum for health in the 2011-12 budget was 15 per cent lower than the previous year’s allocation.
“Even if the massive allocation of $6 billion for defence could be considered essential to defend the country’s borders and its people”, says Aqeel Karim Dhedhi (AKD) – a stock broker and a well-known social worker, “By allocating only $470 million for health education, the country was raising an army of sick and the illiterate”.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the $470 million set aside for both health and education for the population translate into $2.60 or Rs260 per person per year.
The argument of constraint of resources holds no water. The government can always find money by cutting down non-development expenditure, but forever has been the case that when an allocation for social sectors is highlighted, the budget-makers took the other way.
Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in the last budget (2011-12) speech said: “Health and Education are now provincial projects. However, some responsibilities have been voluntarily accepted by the government in view of their critical need for the economy. For instance, in the health sector Rs.15 billion have been allocated to finance-vertical programs such as Expanded Program for Immunization, Lady Health Workers, Primary Health Care and National Maternal Neonatal and Child Health program”.
And he went on to say: “In the education sector, HEC will remain the financial responsibility of the federal government and during the year, Rs.40 billion have been allocated for its development programs besides bearing the full amount of current expenditures.”
Educationalists and healthcare providers argue, and rightly so, that the sum ascribed to social sectors is too short to be little. They do not subscribe to the finance minister’s view, espoused in last year’s budget speech, that after their transfer to the provinces under the constitutional arrangement, health and education “do not need federal money any longer.”
For health, much of the country’s population in lower and middle classes have been suffering from various infectious diseases. The country has continuously been challenged by epidemics and communicable and non-communicable diseases. Yet, not a rupee is allocated for ‘prevention of diseases.’
The opposition in criticised the government in the National Assembly last year, for low allocation of funds to primary and higher education, and health. A member pointed out that the country had 25 million youth aged between 17 and 24 years and only 4.5 per cent among them could afford to acquire higher education.
That was abysmally low against regional countries, where 11 per cent of the youth in India, 18 per cent in Malaysia and 20 per cent in China benefit from higher education.
The finance minister himself admitted that 50 per cent of the population is under the age of 20. Don’t those children and youth deserve to be educated? Without opening up the minds of youth to knowledge, how does the country expect to fight ignorance, extremism, and terrorism?
