Pakistan’s Education Spending Drops Sharply to 0.8% of GDP
News Desk
Islamabad: Pakistan’s public spending on education has fallen to a historic low, with cumulative expenditures by federal and provincial governments during the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 (July–March) amounting to just 0.8 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to official data.
This represents a sharp 29.4 percent drop in education-related spending compared to the same period last year, declining from Rs 1,251.06 billion in FY2024 to Rs 899.6 billion in FY2025. The deep cut comes amid growing concerns over Pakistan’s worsening education indicators, including out-of-school children, stagnant literacy rates, and inadequate infrastructure in public schools.
The current level of investment is significantly lower than the global average, where countries typically allocate between 4 to 6 percent of their GDP to the education sector. Education experts and policymakers warn that Pakistan’s continued underfunding of education risks derailing progress toward national development priorities and international commitments such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Education is supposed to be a cornerstone of Pakistan’s development agenda, but the numbers tell a different story,” said an education policy analyst based in Islamabad. “Such drastic cuts not only undermine ongoing reforms but also push millions of children further away from quality education.”
Despite repeated claims by the government about prioritizing education as a driver of socio-economic transformation, the sector remains chronically under-resourced. The impact is visible across the country: thousands of public schools operate without electricity, clean drinking water, or functional toilets, and millions of children particularly girls in rural areas remain out of school.
Stakeholders are urging the government to reverse the budgetary decline and adopt a long-term strategy to increase investments in education, warning that failure to do so will have lasting consequences on Pakistan’s human capital and economic growth.
