They don’t really care

THE budgets for FY26-27 are mostly out and the story they tell is the same as before: they don’t really care about us. Even when Pakistan has just gone through one of the worst inflationary periods of its history and everyone knows that fixed income groups have been hurt the most, both on the expenditure — through increases in prices of goods and services — and income side — through limited income-increase opportunities due to slow growth and greater direct and indirect taxation — there has been little to no relief for ordinary, working-class Pakistanis. The prime minister just thanked them for having borne the brunt of the crises … as the poet said: ‘faqat wada-i-hoor’. Look at the education budget. The UN recommends a minimum of four per cent of GDP to be spent on education every year. We used to spend a little below 2pc of GDP on education, over the last couple of years; it has dipped below 1pc of GDP. Yet every leader insists that education is a top priority for their government and every leader agrees that the future of the country depends on the youth of this country being educated and trained. The composition of this 1pc that is being spent on education is also very interesting. At the federal level, where many universities have been facing severe financial problems, the recurrent budget for higher education — the money given to the Higher Education Commission to be distributed to the universities — has been kept the same as last year. There has not even been adjustment for inflation — this while salaries have been increased by 7pc. Over the years, there has been an increase in the number of universities as well, so the envelope has been getting smaller in many ways. But there have again been no adjustments. The government imperative is that universities should prepare the young for globally competitive markets. But a lot of universities do not even have resources for making salary and pension payments. Yet education remains a top priority! Over the last coup