The illusion of success through education

— Fatima S Attarwala

We all grew up knowing that education is the key to success, to employment, to growth, to wealth and to be a ‘somebody’ in life. That’s why at preschool level parents are willing to spend thousands for entrance prep for a prestigious school like Karachi Grammar School. The sessions not only entail prepping the child for the entrance test but there are also stories of parents being coached on how to dress and talk to get admission.
Similarly, universities like Institute of Business Administration, Lahore University of Management Sciences and Agha Khan University are highly coveted. Those from the upwardly mobile middle-income groups dream of starting out on six-figure packages with perks at the back of degrees perceived to have high employment value.
At the other end of the spectrum are the lower-middle income groups who strive to give their children a better life through any form of education. The Citizens Foundation is rife with stories of the empowerment of education and how one generation can change destinies of families.

But what happens when those promises fall to the ground? While the data available is patchy, the rates of unemployment of those with advanced education is higher than the younger unemployment rates in the country, according to the World Bank.

The Higher Education Commi­ssion’s FY23 annual report stated that there about 470,000 graduates, including bachelors, masters, PhDs and others. The Labour Force Survey FY21 stated the force increase by about 1.5 million per annum, but these included jobs across the spectrum from the runner boy in the office with matriculation to the English-speaking guards outside the US consulate.
Are there enough jobs in the economy to absorb half a million graduates? Data suggests that the likelihood of unemployment increases in proportion to the level of education in Pakistan. The macroeconomic conditions and contraction of demand shrink jobs available but that is not the sole reason for high rates of graduate unemployment.
Research by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics states that unemployment is almost 3x the average unemployment rate in the country. In the paper “Disaggregating the graduate unemployment in Pakistan”, the authors state that students are studying without being aware of what jobs are available, in part because of weak university-industry linkages. Pakistan is ranked 63rd out of 163 countries on World Bank’s University-industry linkage index. HEC annual reports show that the bulk of graduates are in arts and humanities.
Counter-intuitively, the number of universities in Pakistan are increasing as it becomes a money-making industry in its own right, even if the sector appears to be divorced from reality. Over the last 10 years, a whopping 100 universities/degree awarding institutions have been added in Pakistan, according to the HEC annual reports.
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 7th, 2024