The challenge facing Pakistan is very clear. Either it manages
to dramatically slow population growth–increasing
from 33 million according to the first census taken in 1951
to 132 million in 1998 and estimated at 185 million in 2010–
and educate its children, the country’s future labor force,
or it will have to deal increasingly with a large uneducated
working age population that will increasingly put the
country at risk of political unrest. Specifically, large youth
cohorts have been associated with higher risks of political
violence in developing countries, where young people have
few alternatives besides unemployment and poverty (Collier
2000, Goldstone 2001, Urdal 2006). Pakistan is at risk of
similar destabilization. The other danger is that the country
will be stuck in a poverty trap, where low levels of education
and high population growth rates prevent it from
driving the road to higher development. Because education
and population have such a large momentum, the window
for action is actually not very wide. Any delay in investing
in education now will have repercussions in the future.
However, the investments in education have been too low
in the distant and recent past.