ISLAMABAD:
With 37% of Pakistan’s youth neither employed nor enrolled in education or training, the government has proposed to China to offer 10,000 doctoral scholarships to Pakistani students at China’s top 25 universities. The initiative aims to equip young people with education in emerging disciplines and support the modernization of Pakistan’s economy.
The proposal was presented to Chinese authorities during a recent meeting of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Joint Cooperation Committee, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said in an interview with The Express PK Press Club on Wednesday.
The minister said the Chinese side had also expressed interest in the proposal and sought more details from Pakistan.
According to the proposal, the Pakistani side pointed out that nearly 60 percent of the country’s population is below the age of 30 and proposed the award of 10,000 doctoral scholarships in artificial intelligence, engineering and emerging sciences in leading Chinese universities over the next decade, to build a strong human resource base for knowledge-driven growth.
The proposal is currently being considered by Chinese authorities and could be included in the final draft minutes of the 14th JCC, which are expected to be signed very soon.
According to the World Bank’s recent Poverty, Equity and Resilience Assessment of Pakistan, 37% of young Pakistanis aged 15-24 are not employed or participating in education or training. This is due to a combination of strong demographic pressures and a mismatch between labor demand and skills, putting young people at risk of social and economic exclusion, the report says.
The share of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) is higher in urban areas, at 39%, compared to 35% in cities, and higher for women than men, according to the World Bank. It is particularly concerning that NEET rates are higher and increasing among young people in the two poorest social protection quintiles, as this limits the ability of the poorest households to improve their living conditions.
The report further highlights that recent years have been marked by back-to-back crises – including macroeconomic, political and climate-induced shocks – which have exposed the vulnerability of Pakistan’s growth model, thereby putting additional pressure on the poor.
The planning minister said Pakistan had proposed to Chinese authorities to provide doctoral scholarships to Pakistani students in their top 25 universities to strengthen the softer side of CPEC and train people in modern disciplines.
Iqbal said that CPEC has already moved from infrastructure to areas critical to the modernization of Pakistan’s economy. He indicated that these scholarships should be awarded over a period of 10 years.
Under another proposal, Pakistan also asked China to launch vocational training programs, youth innovation centers and internship opportunities in Chinese companies to equip young Pakistanis with the skills required to lead advanced technology, industry and green growth in CPEC 2.0.
The World Bank said in its report that the level of education in Pakistan was alarming; around a quarter of primary school-age children do not attend school, and almost eight out of ten 10-year-olds cannot read and understand simple text.
In 2021, Pakistan’s learning poverty index stood at 78%, significantly higher than the average for low- and middle-income countries where the ratio is 60%. Learning poverty is defined as the proportion of 10-year-old children who cannot read or write a simple text.
The World Bank’s Human Capital Review indicates that the quality of education in Pakistan was much lower than that of high-income and peer countries in the region. Only half of the time students spend in school is spent learning, teacher absenteeism remains a significant problem, and the quality of teaching is low.
Any educational improvement has been driven by a shift from public to private schools, while children from low-income households continue to attend low-performing and underfunded public schools.
Pakistan is discussing with China the issue of capacity building of its youth. According to the draft CPEC minutes, in September this year, Pakistan and China agreed to actively promote policy exchanges, talent training, academic seminars and industrial cooperation in areas such as information and communication technology infrastructure, application innovation, policies and regulations, radio frequency spectrum management, cybersecurity and human resource development.
They also agreed to continue their cooperation in formulating frequency spectrum regulations for emerging technologies. Furthermore, the two sides exchanged views on the need to help Pakistan establish a telecommunications research center, as well as laboratories for emerging technologies and hardware.
However, in order to quash any propaganda against bilateral and trade relations, it was decided that “the two sides would jointly strengthen the positive promotion of CPEC and non-CPEC projects, promptly refute and clarify defamatory remarks, and promote the formation of a more positive and favorable perception of China among the Pakistani people, so as to create a friendly environment for the smooth implementation of these projects.”
Due to the weak capacity of the Pakistani bureaucracy to develop bankable projects for foreign investment, the government decided to hire foreign consultants. However, he recently presented a consultancy cost of Rs5.4 billion before the Central Development Working Group. The CDWP has postponed the project for the time being.
According to a statement issued by the Public-Private Partnership Authority through the Ministry of Planning, the Rs5.4 billion project aimed to engage leading consultancy firms and was approved by the federal cabinet to provide structured whole-of-government advisory support across federal ministries.
He said allocating a budget for external advice is standard practice. The CDWP regularly spends about 3-5% of each year’s Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) on advisory and consultancy services.
The PPPA further stated that these funds do not create physical assets but are invested in expertise to ensure that major policies and projects are evidence-based and aligned with global best practices.
