May 21, 2012
Dr Javaid Laghari

Over the next two decades, South Asia will play an important role in the creation of a 21st century knowledge economy. With nearly 1.6 billion people, it is home to a quarter of the world’s population. One fifth of this population is between 15-24 years, which is the largest number of young people ever to transition into adulthood in the world as a whole. The region is expected to add 40 percent to the growth of the world’s working age population in the next few decades. This change in demography can be a liability or an asset, as it is from a region that is also home to 40 percent of the world’s poor.

Within South Asia, India is poised to capture the lion’s share of the knowledge economy through its initiatives and investment in education. With half of India’s 1.2 billion people under the age of 25, India is aggressively pursuing to make this demographic dividend work to its economic advantage in the coming decades.

There are three essentials to build up a knowledge economy: higher education and research, technology readiness, and innovation & entrepreneurship. Within South Asia, India has taken the lead on all three. It spends 4.1 percent of its GDP on its education sector, estimated to be about US$40 billion, which will increase by 18 percent this year and grow to over US$100 billion by 2018. It has 504 universities and an university enrolment of over 15 million. Over the next five years, India will establish 200 new universities thereby increasing enrolment to over 40 million by 2020.

Nine new IITs will be established, bringing the total number of IITs to 16. The higher education budget has increased by 34 percent just this year alone, to over $3 billion, and a sum of $16 billion, the biggest-ever allocation, has been set aside for higher education development in the twelfth five year plan. Its accessibility, which is 18 percent now, will reach 30 percent. On the other hand, Pakistan spends only 1.7 percent of its GDP on education, and has 8 percent accessibility. Its post-secondary enrolment is 1.5 million with 134 universities. Even Bangladesh, which spends 2.4 percent of its GDP on education, has an accessibility of 12 percent.

In research, in the last year alone, India produced about 9,000 PhDs and published over 50,000 research papers. But that is about to increase drastically when its spending on research and development will increase to 2 percent of the GDP from the current 0.9 percent by 2017. On a comparative note, last year Pakistan produced 700 PhDs (up from 200 ten years back) and published 6200 research papers. There is also a digital revolution taking place in India: India has already led an IT revolution, with exports exceeding $70 billion (Pakistan is under $2 billion). India’s population of Internet users is now 80 million (compared to 20 million for Pakistan), which is also about to change. The government is rolling out its National Broadband Plan, a $4.5 billion initiative to build a country-wide fibre optic network that will connect an additional 160 million Indians by 2014, almost as much as the US.

There are nearly 800 million mobile subscribers in India (73 percent penetration), compared to 130 million in Pakistan (65 percent penetration). Mobility will drive much of the expansion in Internet usage. One of every four Internet users in the country now accesses the net using a mobile device. Three of every four net users will do so by 2015 as a result of 3G wireless services introduced in 2011, expected to reach 22 percent penetration by 2015. 4G services are being introduced later this year as well. Pakistan is yet to introduce its 3G services. India has also introduced the handheld wireless tablet “Akash” which costs only about $30, and is within the reach of the common man. The vision is to connect “the last person” to the net!

India’s political leadership is putting out all the right signals. India has a knowledge commission headed by a world-renowned expert serving as an adviser to the prime minister; a ministry of human resource development, and a strong and centralised university grants commission. Going beyond the Pakistan experience, the Indian cabinet last year approved the “National Commission for Higher Education and Research” which will consolidate and further strengthen the higher education sector, and the bill is now in parliament. Even Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, learning from Pakistan’s experience, are in the process of establishing their own HECs in place of the UGCs. However in Pakistan, there are conspiracies afoot to devolve and demolish the HEC. Whatever gains have been made in Pakistan in recent years will reverse if this so happens and we will fall to the levels of Rwanda and Chad. It may even become difficult to have Pakistani degrees recognised worldwide should such a move materialise.

For South Asia, to capitalise on its demographic dividend and build up a knowledge economy, it is essential that the countries invest in their knowledge based infrastructure on war footing. Most South Asian countries, with the exception of Pakistan, are already doing so. Pakistan, if it does not invest in its youth through facilitating education, technology and research, risks being left behind and becoming a failed state.

The writer is chairperson of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Email: jlaghari@ hec.gov.pk
-The News