Human resource development is a key factor in the progress of a nation, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has rightly stressed the importance of developing Pakistan's "human capital" to achieve scientific and economic advancement.
Addressing a function in Islamabad, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan couldn't achieve progress without placing due emphasis on developing science and technology. Knowledge-based economy is the name of the game in the globalized world of today, as it forms the basis of all advancement.
At the same time, the Prime Minister has acknowledged the existence of a "knowledge gap" and expressed his government's resolve to remove it. It cannot be denied that all advanced countries in the world have attained their exalted positions by focusing on the development of their human capital, while Pakistan has lagged dangerously behind even some of the regional states in exploiting this priceless resource as a catalyst of economic growth.
As asserted by Shaukat Aziz, the present government has indeed achieved a measure of success in developing human capital, though a lot still remains to be done. Human resource, once developed, provides to a nation its most dependable jumping board to attain progress and prosperity.
Globalisation has fortunately demolished the barriers that had formerly blocked or impeded social and academic interaction. Even then, despite sporadic commitment demonstrated by successive governments, Pakistan remains saddled with some of the lowest indicators in educational achievement in the entire region.
A major cause of this phenomenon is that education in Pakistan has traditionally remained woefully under-funded. In 2001 the government announced plans to achieve universal education by 2010 and 78 percent literacy by the year 2011.
However, over 50 percent of the funds for this otherwise vital initiative were expected from international donors who have their own priorities. Pakistan's lack of progress in developing human capital, as indeed in many other domains of national endeavour, has been due largely to the contradiction between the claims successive governments have churned out and their actual performance.
The budgetary allocation for education has in fact gone down from what it was in the 1980s or the 1990s. According to available figures, during the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the public expenditure on education had averaged 2.5 percent of the GDP, which has fallen to less than 2 percent since 1998.
According to the data relating to the fiscal year 2004, an allocation of only $161.1 million or 1.4 percent of the GDP was made for education, as against $201.6 million, or 1.7 percent of GDP, in the 2005 budget.
The falling trend in budgetary allocations for education needs to be immediately reversed if Pakistan is to secure its rightful place in the globalized world of today.
Although the government has achieved an impressive turnaround through drastic restructuring of the economy, much needs to be done to put it on a sound footing. For instance, Pakistan can restructure its IT sector to make it competitive in the global IT scenario.
Incidentally, India has already secured a respectable niche in the global IT sector. Our IT industry, like many other crucial sectors, has also had to sustain the impact of a massive brain drain, because of a number of factors, that need to be addressed, to make these highly qualified professionals to come back to the country.
An educated and trained manpower is the most precious - and imperishable -resource any country can aspire to have. Fund-starvation of education in Pakistan, for whatever cause or causes, has inflicted irreparable harm on the country and its economy.
The function Prime Minister Aziz has addressed in Islamabad, and the presence of three Nobel Laureates there, demonstrates the government's commitment to focus its attention on education in future, particularly the higher education. We have lagged far behind even some of our neighbours in the region.
For instance, according to Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, "between 1947 and 1986 the total number of Ph.Ds produced by all Pakistani universities was 128. In comparison, India produces 150 science and engineering Ph.Ds in a single year."
The gap should provide us a sobering measure of where we stand in education today. The government must cut down its non-development expenditure to ensure enhanced budgetary allocation to education and health - the two sectors that have had to bear the brunt of our financial shenanigans.