Pakistan has declared education an emergency. The coming budget will show whether the state meant it. The federal budget process for FY2026–27 is already underway. The Finance Division’s Budget Call Circular, issued on Jan 27, 2026, asks ministries and divisions to submit FY2024–25 actuals, FY2025–26 revised estimates, and FY2026–27 budget estimates. In other words, the next budget is now being shaped. This is where Pakistan’s education emergency will either become a governing priority or remain a public performance.

The emergency is not rhetorical. UNICEF Pakistan notes that more than 26 million school-age children are out of school, over 10 per cent of all out-of-school children globally, although Pakistan has only around three per cent of the world’s population. It also notes that 77pc of children cannot read and understand a simple text by the age of 10. (UNICEF)

Yet the public purse tells another story. The Pakistan Economic Survey 2024–25 states that cumulative education expenditure by federal and provincial governments in FY2025, from July to March, was estimated at 0.8pc of GDP. It also records that education-related expenditure decreased by 29.4pc, falling to Rs899.6bn from Rs1, 251.06bn.

An emergency funded at less than one per cent of GDP is not an emergency response. It is a contradiction written into the budget. The usual defence is fiscal constraint. Pakistan is indebted, undertaxed, and under pressure from external financing needs. This is true. The Federal Budget in Brief 2025–26 places interest payments at Rs8,207bn and defence affairs and services at Rs2,550bn, against total expenditure of Rs17,573bn. No serious education argument can pretend that the state has unlimited room to spend. But fiscal pressure does not erase political choice. It reveals it. Even in difficult budgets, some commitments are protected, some expanded, and some deferred. Education is too often deferred. This is the........

© Paradigm Shift