Beyond default — Iran via the US

Pakistan has been suffering from chronic governance issues for the past several decades. Inheriting the post-colonial bureaucracy and with its manageable population of 30 million (West Pakistan, 1947), the country managed to get by in the early days. The population continued to grow to 70m in 1971 and to 130m in 1998, but it remained unfashionable and politically incorrect to talk about harmonising the country’s demographics. We failed to evolve the colonial systems in line with the modern world, with the result that we stand at around 250m, with a growth rate of over 2 per cent per annum (i.e., 15,000 births every day). This unchecked growth of headcount was left at the mercy of meagre investment in education and skills development. The average education budget, both provincial and federal, has hovered around a paltry 4pc of outlay, which is less than 1pc of the GDP. But even this 4pc was never spent intelligently. Stimulating cognitive thinking in children was never on the cards, and much of this budget was spent towards brick-and-mortar projects or on politically motivated schemes like “distributing laptops” and to line the pockets of officials and contractors.