The preceding assessment is based on an interpretation offered by Indian blogger Siddarth Vij of Barro-Lee data in response to my earlier blog post titled Pakistan Ahead of India in Graduation at All Levels. Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee are Harvard University researchers whose data on educational attainment is used by UNDP and the World Bank. Here's how Vij read Barro-Lee dataset for India:"327 out of every 1000 Indians above the age of 15 have never had any formal schooling. Of the remaining 673, only 20 dropped out during primary school. Once we got kids into primary school, we managed to make sure that they completed it. In secondary school, however, the situation is markedly different. 465 out of every 1000 Indians made it to secondary school but 394 dropped out without completing. Only 58 made it to college out of which a little more than half graduated with a degree"
Putting the two together, here's how the two South Asian neighbors compare:
As of 2010, there are 380 (vs 327 Indians) out of every 1000 Pakistanis age 15 and above who have never had any formal schooling. Of the remaining 620 (vs 673 Indians) who enrolled in school, 22 (vs 20 Indians) dropped out before finishing primary school, and the remaining 598 (vs 653 Indians) completed it. There are 401 (vs 465 Indians) out of every 1000 Pakistanis who made it to secondary school. 290 (vs 69 Indians) completed secondary school while 111 (vs. 394 Indians) dropped out. Only 55 (vs 58 Indians) made it to college out of which 39 (vs 31 Indians) graduated with a degree.
While Vij's explanation of Barro-Lee data-set sounds quite plausible, I still stand by my conclusion made in the earlier post that the percentage of population that completed secondary and tertiary education in Pakistan is higher than that in India.
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| Source: OECD Global Education Digest 2009 |
Another important point to note in Barro-Lee dataset is that Pakistan has been increasing enrollment of students in schools at a faster rate since 1990 than India. In 1990, there were 66.2% of Pakistanis vs 51.6% of Indians who had no schooling. In 2000, there were 60.2% Pakistanis vs 43% Indians with no schooling. In 2010, Pakistan reduced it to 38% vs India's 32.7%.
Clearly, both India and Pakistan have made significant progress on the education front in the last few decades. However, the Barro-Lee dataset confirms that the two South Asian nations still have a long way to go to catch up with the rapidly developing nations of East Asia as well as the industrialized world.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
India & Pakistan Comparison Update 2011
India and Pakistan Contrasted in 2010
Educational Attainment Dataset By Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee
Quality of Higher Education in India and Pakistan
Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital
Intellectual Wealth of Nations
Pakistan's Story After 64 Years of Independence
Pakistan Ahead of India on Key Human Development Indices
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Here's an ET piece on Pakistani universities among top 300 in Asia:
Investments in higher education seem to have reaped dividends as six universities of Pakistan, including the University of Karachi (KU), have won a place among the top 300 Asian universities.
The QS Asian University Rankings 2012 list shows National University of Science and Technology (#108), KU (#191-200), Aga Khan University (#201-250), Lahore University of Management Sciences (#251-300) and The University of Lahore (#251-300) in the top 300 universities of the continent.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is the world’s most renowned and prestigious ranking agency.
A statement issued on Wednesday by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) claimed that the rankings speak volumes about the hard work put in by the management and faculty of these universities.
The HEC has consistently supported the varsities in terms of infrastructure, digital libraries, opportunities for innovative research, collaborative research projects with leading international institutions and participating in international exchange programmes, it was said.
Pakistani universities have produced more PhDs in the past nine years (3,280) – since the establishment of the HEC – than in the first 55 years (3,000) of the country’s establishment.
Research output has grown eight-fold since 2002 (from 815 in 2002 to 6,200 in 2011) which is a remarkable achievement by any world standard. Eighty per cent of these research publications are coming from higher education institutes. The output has more than doubled in the last three years and is expected to double again in the next three.
Around 5,000 scholars from Pakistan have presented their research work at leading conferences of the world and have established academic linkages with their counterparts in every leading university of the world in the US, UK, China, Germany, France, Australia, Korea, etc.
According to the HEC, Pakistani scientists, engineers and technologists are the country’s biggest strategic asset. Till five years ago, they were concentrated in a few strategic organisations, but the higher education revolution brought about by the HEC has ensured that every engineering and science and technology university has started to blossom into a centre of research and innovation.
The HEC declared that it has been able to break the elitist myth of availability of talent only in large cities by providing scholarships to talented students belonging to the middle class and poor segments of the society.
Currently, the education commission is focusing on expansion of facilities for biotechnology and genetics, immunology, robotics and automation, nanotechnology, superconductivity, photo-optics and lasers, electromagnetics and nuclear fusion for energy, it was stated.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/386574/ku-lands-in-bottom-half-of-top-300-asian-universities/
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2012
Here are the names of 6 Pakistani universities among top 300 Asian universities ranked by QS 2012:
#108 NUST Islamabad
#191-200 University of Karachi
#201-250 Agha Khan University Karachi
#201-250 Univ of Engg & Tech (UET) Lahore
#251-300 Lahore University of Management Sciences
#251-300 University of Lahore
Here's an AFP report on Pakistan economy:
Pakistan's economy grew by 3.7 percent in the current fiscal year with tax collection up an "unprecedented" 25 percent, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said Thursday.
He unveiled the statistics one day before presenting the next budget to parliament amid concerns that Pakistan is headed towards a financial crisis unless it returns to the IMF.
"The growth rate remained 3.7 percent and it is the highest in the past three years," Shaikh told a news conference of the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
"The growth rate for a country like Pakistan should be at least five to six percent and this is our medium term goal," he said.
Shaikh said that high oil prices in the international market had affected economies all over the world, including Pakistan's, and that Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence deterred foreign investors.
Pakistan has also suffered from a second consecutive year of major flooding, totting up losses of $3 billion, Shaikh said.
The minister said the budget deficit was five percent for the period July 2011 to April 2012. External forecasts predict it will nudge closer to seven percent of GDP for the fiscal year amid warnings that the government is running out of ways to fund it.
The IMF bailed out Pakistan with an $11.3 billion loan package in 2008 that stopped last November after Islamabad rejected strict reform demands, largely over tax.
Shaikh said tax collection had increased by 25 percent compared to the previous year.
"For the first 10 months we had tax collection of 1,450 billion rupees as compared to 1,050 billion rupees last year and it is an increase of 25 percent which is unprecedented in Pakistan's history," Shaikh said.
The country's tax revenues are among the lowest in the world at just 9.8 percent of GDP in fiscal 2010-2011, says the Asian Development Bank. Less than two percent of the population pays tax on their income.
The minister said the government had reduced its expenses by 10 percent.
Inflation stood at 10.8 percent, compared to 13.8 percent during the previous fiscal year, he said, adding: "We have adopted a tight monetary policy."
Pakistan has also missed out on payments from the United States for its efforts to fight militancy under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF).
This brought around $8.8 billion into Pakistan's coffers between 2002 and 2011, including $1.5 billion in 2009-10, but Islamabad stopped claiming the money as ties with Washington collapsed in the wake of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5FI6KtGv3YCAp5BkWTywYT69MaQ?docId=CNG.f69b45f6cd1189152e35c5b5ab00af47.8a1
Here's an ET story on increasing school enrollment in Swat with food rations to children:
Apart from providing education, primary schools have an added incentive for children in upper Swat. They get free food rations for attending classes under the United Nations World Food Safety Net Feeding Programme. This has subsequently upped the enrolment rate in the schools by 60 per cent, it has been learnt.
Students have been provided energy biscuits and cooking oil under the World Food Program-sponsored programme since 2009. Teachers said that the project is achieving more than their expectations.
“Apart from increasing enrolment in primary schools, the programme aims to eliminate child labour and improve attendance,” Programme Manager Amjad Ali told The Express Tribune. He said that around 130,000 children and teachers in 610 primary schools of the upper Swat have benefited from the programme.
Balancing an oil canister in his hands, Muhammad Ali, a second grader who was returning home on Wednesday, said joyously: “We get parathas (oiled flatbread) with tea at school daily in the morning, which we did not get before.”
Another schoolboy, also holding an oil canister he got from school, seemed even more jubilant than his classmates. “We are getting double advantage: study and food. We love our school,” they said in unison.
“This is an effective way of attracting children towards schools,” said Kalam Education Department Centre In-charge Shah Nazar. “We don’t need to launch new campaigns to attract students; we are already short of space to accommodate them,” he said. Nazar added the programme has also motivated parents who were initially sceptical about sending their children to school and were more inclined towards sending them to work instead.
Abdul Ghafar Khan, a teacher in Kalam, concurred. He said that with the incentive of food, even street children have been admitted to schools.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/386965/food-for-education-in-swat-a-delectable-reason-to-be-in-primary-school/
Here are a few excerpts from Wall Street Journal story titled "India Fades":
India's growth prospects have been fading for some time. Multinationals are walking away from the country, withdrawing some $10.7 billion worth of investments in 2011 alone, according to Nomura. Manufacturing contracted by 0.3% for the year that ended March 31. Agriculture and services faltered as well.
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Delhi managed to keep the party going after the 2008 financial crisis with more government spending and easier credit. But that only postponed the reckoning—while sending the inflation rate north of 8% for the better part of the last two years.
After growth dipped below 7% late last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turned to gimmicks, like having state-owned Coal India boost coal supply to power producers in a one-off manner or proposing to set up special manufacturing zones where factories would get tax breaks. But businesses want less red tape permanently, especially when it comes to energy investments, as well as labor reform to make hiring and firing easier. On both fronts, the Prime Minister has done nothing.
Then there was his one serious attempt at reform. In late November he announced plans to allow foreign investment in big-box retail stores. The reform would have been a boon for consumers, and would have helped import some crucial supply-chain know how. But the reform met the usual combination of populist and special-interest resistance, and the government folded in 10 short days.
Indians are increasingly disenchanted with Congress's failure to push for pro-market reforms, and have voted accordingly in recent state elections. That's the good news. There's been a lot of talk about India's emergence as a new economic superpower. An India with the ambition to rise in the world will not treat a high-growth economy as a national birthright.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640104577440103460087194.html
Here's a Nature report on financial crunch hurting university research in Pakistan:
Pakistani universities are grappling with yet another financial crisis after parliament’s approval of a 2012–13 higher-education research budget of 15.8 billion rupees (US$166 million), 10 billion rupees less than the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had asked for.
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The HEC, which governs and distributes funds to Pakistan’s 74 government-funded universities, was set up in 2002, and it brought about revolutionary changes in the country’s higher-education system. University enrolment tripled between 2003 and 2008 and the number of international research publications from Pakistani institutions rocketed from 600 per year to more than 4,300. The HEC’s research funding rose from 270 million rupees in 2002 to 22.5 billion rupees in 2009, but fell to 14 billion rupees last year.
The financial stress has already led to the closure of many research and higher-education projects, including a programme of ‘Core Groups’ to promote life sciences, chemistry and physics. Most of the 175 new projects funded by HEC last year are going at a slow pace or have been halted for want of funds.
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The main reason behind the low funding for the HEC is a constitutional amendment enacted in 2010 that devolved responsibility for several federal ministries, including the education ministry, to the provinces. The government has tried to devolve the HEC as well, even though it was not under the control of the education ministry. This led to mass protests in April 2011, and Pakistan’s Supreme Court declared the plan unlawful.
Academics say that devolving the HEC to the provinces would undo the recent improvements in higher education, and some believe that the federal government considers the HEC a financial liability, as spending money on an institution that will eventually be devolved to the provinces is an unfruitful investment.
Imtiaz Gilani, vice-chancellor of the University of Engineering and Technology in Peshawar, says: “Funding cuts and the non-provision of promised money shows that the government wants to get rid of higher-education responsibility, but this would badly affect universities and research in Pakistan.”
The government issued a notification on 11 June bringing the HEC under the control of the Ministry of Professional and Technical Education, paving the way for devolution. This move was widely opposed by academics, who fear that it will damage the commission’s autonomy.
Kaleem Ullah, president of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA), which organised the 25 June protests, says that his group will not be satisfied until all withheld funds are released. FAPUASA has threatened to stage continuous protests until the funding issue is resolved.
http://www.nature.com/news/academics-protest-shrinking-funds-in-pakistan-1.10935
Here's an ET story on Dr. Ataur Rehman speech on knowledge economy in Pakistan:
“With the initiatives taken by the HEC, Pakistan was poised to make a major breakthrough and evolve into a knowledge economy from an agricultural economy,” he said. He lamented that an official notification was issued on November 30, 2010 to fragment the HEC and break it into pieces.
Rehman, however, being the Pakistan Academy of Science president intervened and approached the apex court to receive an order which declared the fragmentation of the HEC to be unconstitutional. “The government, however, slashed the commission’s budget by 50 per cent and a number of development programmes in universities have come to a halt,” he said.
Making a reference to an article in The Hindustan Times, he said, “The rapid developments posed a threat to India, but we ourselves are our own worst enemy.” He added we had this aim that Pakistan should not equal India but outdo it in terms of research outpost.
He also highlighted the fact that during his term as minister, he successfully convinced the former president, Pervez Musharraf, to increase the education budget by 2,400 per cent and that of science and technology by 1,600 per cent.
According to Dr Rehman, around 11,000 scholarships were awarded to students to study abroad at mostly European universities.
He said that the world’s largest Fulbright scholarship programme was initiated, with a research grant worth $100,000 dollars and a job arranged for the recipient a year prior of returning to Pakistan.
The HEC also developed the Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN) through which 60,000 textbooks and 25,000 research journals were made accessible to students at their educational institutions. The students’ enrolment at the universities climbed up to 850,000 from 270,000 in just nine years while the universities produced 3,685 PhDs in such a short span which earlier were 3,200 in total from 1947 till 2000.
As for technological development, Dr Rehman said that fiber-optics lines which were laid in 40 cities in the year 2000, expanded to 400 cities allowing access to internet in nearly 1,000 cities and villages from just 29 cities previously.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/410711/we-are-converting-to-a-knowledge-based-economy-from-an-agriculture-based-economy/
Here's PakObserver on growing number of people with doctorate degrees i Pakistan:
Saturday, November 24, 2012 - Islamabad—The Pakistani universities are now able to produce more PhDs in the next 3 years as compared to last 10 years. The total number of PhDs in Pakistan has reached the figure of 8,142. According to the available statistics, the number of PhDs has increased from 348 (1947 to 2002) to 679 in 2012 in agriculture and veterinary sciences, from 586 to 1,096 in biological sciences, from 14 to 123 in business education, from merely 21 to 262 in engineering and technology and from 709 to 1,071 in physical sciences, Technology Times Reported.
In social sciences, the number increased to 887 from 108 during last ten years. The figures also indicate that during the last decade, special emphasis has been paid to the disciplines of agriculture and veterinary science, biological, physical and social sciences, business education, engineering and technology. “HEC has so far introduced various indigenous scholarship schemes to create a critical mass of highly qualified human resources in all fields of studies who conduct research on issues of importance to Pakistan.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=183938
It takes at least 500 scientists and 1300 engineers with relevant training and skills to have a nuclear weapons program, according to a 1968 UN study...."a United Nations study conservatively estimates that at least 500 scientists and 1300 engineers are needed to develop and maintain warhead production facilities, and an additional 19,000 personnel (more than 5000 of them scientists and engineers) are required to produce delivery vehicles of the intermediate ballistic missile variety"
There's a recent book titled "Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb" by Feroz Khan to understand the basic fact that Pak nuclear weapons program has been a great catalyst for building national human capital and industrial base in the country.
Since 1990s, Pak has built two indigenous nuclear reactors at Khushab entirely on its own. Two more are under construction now.
As to nuclear power plants, Pakistan will find a way to generate more energy from various sources...the current PAEC plan is to build 8,800 MW nuclear power plants capacity by 2030.
Here's an excerpt of a Dawn report on Pakistan's university education:
According to the OECD’s 2009 Global Education Digest, 6.3 per cent of Pakistanis were university graduates as of 2007. The government plans to increase this rate to 10 per cent by 2015 and 15 per cent by 2020. But the key challenges are readiness for growth of the educational infrastructure and support from public and private sector.
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According to 2008 statistics, Pakistan produces about 445,000 university graduates and 10,000 computer science graduates per year. Pakistan Telecom Authority indicates that as of 2008 there are nearly 22 million internet users and over 80 million mobile phone subscribers. A combination of all these educational and technological factors gives Pakistan great leverage to progress towards targeted curriculum development and dissemination through e-learning..
http://dawn.com/2011/02/28/towards-e-learning/
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