Pakistan Shinning III - Population and Literacy

Having already spoken of two principal drivers of economic growth, i.e. a country's marginal rate of saving (and its mirror image of investment) and natural endowments (land, water, and minerals), in this piece, I wish to focus on the next two most important determinants of any nation's prosperity in general and its standing in the overall pecking order among nations. These are, first, its population (including its age profile and gender composition), and second, even more significantly, the level of education of its citizenry. Taken together, these two factors heavily influence a country's long-term economic welfare. Firm and clear understanding of the former should guide planning decisions for deploying appropriate levels of capital in targeted growth strategies, while the dynamics of the latter can temper our ambitions as regards the limits of our competitive abilites. It will be shown that, on both counts, this Government is as clueless as all its predecessors, and that it merrily continues down the path of obfuscation and flim-flam, churning out cooked up and logically unsupportable data to fuel its propaganda drive which has a one-point agenda, namely, clinging on to power come hell or high water.

Although our last population census was conducted in 1998, and the next one is not due till next year, we have access to some indisputable historical facts. First, as per census records, in 1951 the country's population (of what was then West Pakistan) stood at 35 million. And, secondly, that it had mushroomed to 131 million in 1998. Whereas I buy the first assertion of population (because it jives with pre-partition population censi of present-day Pakistan), our enumerators' contention of this sea of humanity numbering only 131 million in 1998 is an obvious understatement. Why? Simply because it implies a low-ball compound annual growth rate of barely 2.85% per annum for the 51 years interregnum between 1947 and 1998. This is untenable because it ignores the basic fact that our median family size was 9 at partition (parents and 7 children). It has progressively declined by 50% to current universally acknowledged level of 6.5 (parents and 4.5 children of whom 2.1 represent population replacement and 2.4 its annual growth).

The secular population profile projected by our Federal Bureau of Statistics implies that our median family size at partition was 7 and not 9. By this device, the 1998 census understated our population by exactly 11 million. However, the international community was never fooled. Any number of websites you visit ( e.g. www.cia.gov. and www.unesco.org) will confirm that Pakistan's population in June 2006 was 166 million and that it is presently growing at 2.4% per annum.

Depending on which domestic source you wish to rely upon (SBP, Federal Bureau of Statistics, or any one of several other Government websites), the official version of current population is 151-155 million or thereabouts…thus continuing with the 11-15 million number deflation first propagated by the 1998 census. There are several theories regarding this conscious understatement. The most widely held belief is that it was the Punjabi bureaucratic mafia in Islamabad that wished to under-represent true populations of the other three provinces in order to deny them their lawful share in federal revenues.

Yes, our population, come June 2007, will be nearly 170 million, and yes, before another ten years are out, and despite an optimistic rate of decline in population growth assumed by the Government (charitably accepted by your scribe for years 2007 and beyond), our head-count will exceed the 200 million mark to overtake Brazil as the 5th most populous country in the world.

Through these columns, we humbly request this Government to please amend its official data even if it means that our GDP per capita will fall short of 800 dollars...a figure which, for its propaganda effect, the minions in Islamabad have projected as a magical number... graduating us into the ranks of middle income countries.

By the way, it is a rather invidious ask because, if the Government succumbs, it will have to restate several other statistics such as literacy rates, school enrollments, and such like...issues which we are now equipped to address.

Lets begin by reviewing another popular Government canard, i.e. the state of our education in general and basic literacy in particular. We are told that the current national literacy rate is close to 60%. However, this claim is made tongue-in-cheek. Like Alice In Wonderland redefining words to mean whatever she wanted them to mean, this Government has redefined the internationally accepted meaning of literacy (understood as an ability to read and write) to mean something quite novel. In its lexicon, literacy is defined as the ability to sign ones name in English or any other vernacular. By this definition, my chauffeur who does not know his alphabet, is literate because he has learnt the penstrokes that depict his name

Now aren't you glad that we already have the population chart above from which to mathematically derive our real literacy rate? How? Its really simple. All we need to start with is the 5-10 year age group at partition, endow it with a progressively rising rate of literacy to reach what the Government claims is a fact today, i.e. a net primary enrollment rate of 56% (83% gross enrollment rate less 27% dropout rate to account for the 7-8 million children out of school that the Government grudgingly acknowledges). The logic of this derivationis that every 5-years age bracket minus natural mortality in the age-group progressively graduates into the next age bracket as we scroll down through time. Thus, the 4.9 million 5-10 year-olds of 1947 will find themselves among the half a million survivors in 65-70 years old group in 2007, with only 50,000 being literate. The right diagonal triangle of this diagram is blank, and for an obvious reason. Barring the odd old fogey who is still around, these 80 plus years old former citizens of this land of the pure are already six-feet under.

According to the irrefutable logic of this chart, by reading left to right against the all-important current year of 2007, we note that literate Pakistanis number 50 million or 29% of total population. However, adult literacy is barely 14% ... placing us in the happy company of the five least educated nations on earth as per the amended EFA data shown below:

Country Adult Literacy
Djibouti 39%
Senegal 38%
Gambia 17%
Pakistan 14%
Burkina Faso 13%


Doesn't it make nonsense of the current political slogan of "Parah Likha Punjab" mouthed ad nauseum by none other than the Chief Minister of the province? I know, his likely response would be, "but we are still better than Burkina Faso". So, unless it redefines literacy to include the educated who are now deceased, the Government cannot claim a national literacy rate over 32% and an adult literacy rate exceeding 15%!

Incidentally, even the high 29% overall literacy rate mentioned above has been made possible by the brave assumption that our compound annual growth in literacy has been 4% above the population growth rate for each year after partition...in itself a very bold assumption because we have never deployed sufficient resources to this effort! Also, if the Government wishes to massage this number to a higher figure, it can only do so by claiming that its education expenditure as a ratio of GDP has been higher than that of previous Governments, and hence, the growth rates of literacy during the past half a dozen years have been greater than those in previous decades! Would you buy such an outrageous claim? Because if you would, then have another look at the Government's own data for education expenditures given below (source: PES).

Current Rupees billion 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

GDP (MP) 3,871 4,095 4,481 5,142 6,129 7,320
Education Allocation 76 79 90 121 135 163
Actual Expenditure (80%) 61 63 72 96 108 130
% of GDP 1.57% 1.54% 1.60% 1.87% 1.76% 1.78%


According to the Auditor General's report to the Public Accounts Committee, actual expenditure out of budgetary allocations over the last 15 years has averaged from as low as 45% in some years to as high as 80%. Let us be generous and say that it was uniformly 80% throughout. Where does that leave us? At a level of educational spending anywhere between 1.5% to 1.8% of GDP. This is one of the lowest ratios in the world. Jolted by recent global condemnation on this performance measure, the Government has now solemnly declared that in future it intends to raise education expenditures to at least 4% of GDP. Don't hold your breath. Remember its an election year!

There is no precedent in history of any nation demonstrating double-digit (or even high single digit) GDP growth while spending next to nothing on its human capital. Apparently, the present Government has discovered the philosophers stone. Or else, how could it claim high GDP growth rates with one of the most illiterate populations on God's earth? At least one thing is certain. Our spin-doctors could have taught Goebbels a thing or two!