April 10, 2026
What has driven this dramatic increase? Certainly the various governments that have run the country since 2010 deserve credit for investing more in education and working to ensure that children attend school. In addition, it is now becoming the cultural norm to be educated, regardless of gender – Photo UN Women Asia and the Pacific
Expanding Education in Pakistan
One of the most critical functions of a nation is to educate its children. The benefits of education are obvious and profound. When a society becomes educated everything gets better. Economic growth takes off, health improves, fertility rates decline, and the society is more capable of sustaining democratic forms of government. Civil society and NGOs become more deeply rooted and effective. Incomes rise across the board. On this front, we are seeing some very positive developments from Pakistan.
When Pakistan became a nation in 1947, there were only about 35 million people in what was then West Pakistan, and the literacy rate was an abysmal 10%. It was rare to find a person who was literate, and even rarer to find people with higher education, especially postgraduate studies like medicine, law, and advanced science degrees that could serve as university professors. Over the last roughly 80 years, the education system in Pakistan has expanded massively, but did not overcome the equally massive growth in the population.
By 2010 there were 200 million people, and the literacy rate had risen to over 50%. But the education system was failing to enroll all the children that should have been in school. In poorer areas and rural areas, many children were out of school entirely, and gender bias led to even larger numbers of girls out of school. The statistics were grim. Counting the school age population to be those children between the ages of 6 and 16, 25 million out of 50 million children were not attending school. Large numbers either never went to school, or dropped out after completing the first five years.
The good news comes from the ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) for 2025 that was just released last week. This report was based on a scientific survey of over 100,000 children. The key finding is that the out of school number has dropped to only 5 million children out of 60 million children in the 6-16 age range. What this means is that Pakistan has dramatically increased its enrollment of children into primary and secondary schools.
What has driven this dramatic increase? Certainly the various governments that have run the country since 2010 deserve credit for investing more in education and working to ensure that children attend school. In addition, it is now becoming the cultural norm to be educated, regardless of gender. In fact, many parents realize how critical good education is to their children’s futures. This has driven a massive increase in private school enrollment where parents are paying money to get a good education for their children. On top of the government and private schooling there is the substantial role played by NGOs that provide charity-based schools in poor and underserved areas. Some of these even focus primarily on rural girls, who are the most likely demographic to be out of school. While there are some parents with fossilized attitudes about educating girls, almost everyone now sees that as normal and proper.
Total spending on education has risen to 18 billion dollars. This amounts to about 300 dollars per pupil, which is in line with what NGOs spend to educate children, although many are able to do so for less. This also means that Pakistan is spending twice as much on education as it is on defense.
East Asian nations like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore all experienced rapid economic growth after World War Two. While Japan was already in many ways a developed nation, it was in ruins due to the war and bombing of its cities. All these countries laid the groundwork for their remarkable economic rise by insisting on universal primary education and literacy. Pakistan unfortunately did not follow their lead. For decades, while some children got excellent educations, went to medical school or engineering and moved to the West to take advantage of opportunity, too many Pakistani children remained illiterate. This served as a retardant on Pakistan’s economic development.
Low levels of education also fueled Pakistan’s population explosion. From 35 million in 1947 the population of Pakistan has reached 250 million today. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR, the average number of children per woman) came down slowly from 7 births in 1960 to 3.6 today. It is down to 3 in urban areas but still at 4 in rural. To get population to stabilize the TFR needs to get down to 2 births per woman. Across most of the globe, the problem is a TFR that has dropped below replacement, as a result populations are starting to decline in places like Italy and China. Even India has a TFR below 2, as does Iran. The two factors that are reliably linked to lower TFR is urban living and girls’ education. Rising education levels for girls in Pakistan will help to bring TFR down and stabilize Pakistan’s population. Given this will take a while, it is likely Pakistan will still see population rise by another 50-100 million people in the next few decades.
While the number of out of school children has plunged, there is still much more to do in terms of education policy. The out of school numbers needs to be driven down even lower, preferably close to zero. The quality of education needs to be improved, emphasizing math, sciences, history, and English language studies. Pakistan also needs to improve and expand its university system. Having 10 years of education is good, but ideally at least 40% of the population should be going on to get college educations. Currently, it is only 10%. Regardless, it is great news that Pakistan has made such progress over the last 15 years, and it should encourage both citizens and the government to push for even more.
