LocationsWhy Pakistan’s Future is Written in Her Classrooms
By Nishat Riaz | Chief Executive Pakistan, Malala Fund
Pakistan’s future will be shaped in its classrooms, not its ministries. Leaving 13.4 million girls behind risks turning our demographic dividend into socio-economic volatility, while educating every girl can unlock a reservoir of productivity that can redefine the nation’s trajectory.
Pakistan is currently navigating a demographic phenomenon that is as much a peril as it is a promise. With over 60 percent of its population under the age of 30, the nation sits upon a youth bulge that could, with the right institutional scaffolding, serve as a primary engine for regional growth. However, as highlighted in UNDP Pakistan’s 49th Development Advocate Pakistan (DAP) report, the social contract between the state and its citizens is under unprecedented strain. At the heart of this tension lies a fundamental failure to convert demographic numbers into human capital.
The 13.4 Million Girls Left Behind
To understand the fragility of Pakistan’s current development trajectory, one must look at the gendered nature of its educational crisis. According to the recent Girls’ Education Statistics and Trends Report (GESTR), a landmark collaboration between the Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) and Malala Fund Pakistan, the scale of exclusion is staggering. Of the 26.2 million children currently out of school, 13.4 million are girls–meaning that 600,000 more girls than boys are out of school in the country.1
This is not merely a statistical outlier; it is a systemic failure. Over the past year, I have consistently argued that this crisis is not driven by a lack of ambition. From the flood-ravaged districts of Sindh to the remote valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan’s girls exhibit a fierce hunger for learning. Yet, they are met by a system that effectively sunsets their ambitions at puberty. The PIE/Malala Fund data confirms that while primary school completion has stabilized, the transition to secondary education remains the broken link. Distant schools, the "mobility tax" imposed by unsafe transport, and a chronic shortage of female educators act as powerful push-out factors that terminate a girl's professional future before it can even begin.
Beyond the Ribbon-Cutting: A Call for Systems, Not Symbols
For too long, the narrative around education in Pakistan has been dominated by symbolic starts–the photogenic distribution of textbooks or the inauguration of primary school wings. But as I noted in The Express Tribune, a social contract that only offers basic literacy is a hollow agreement.2 In a global economy defined by rapid digitalization and automation, offering a girl "just enough" education to read a ballot but not enough to lead a boardroom is a strategy for managed poverty.
Building human capital at scale requires a radical pivot towards 12 years of free, safe, and quality education. To achieve this, our institutions must evolve from passive providers to responsive systems:
Eradicating the "Distance Penalty": For an adolescent girl, every kilometre between her home and the nearest secondary school increases the probability of her permanent exit from the formal economy. Localizing secondary education is therefore an economic imperative.
The Digital Divide: The PIE report reveals a sobering reality: Only 19 percent of schools in Pakistan have access to digital devices. If we do not bridge this gap, we are effectively preparing our youth for a world that no longer exists.
Closing the Adolescent Retention Gap: For many girls, the transition to secondary school coincides with an increased pressure to marry, which can be a significant driver of school dropout. A responsive system must address these pressures head-on, using targeted incentives and support mechanisms such as stipends, safe transport, and community engagement to keep girls in school and on track to complete 12 years of education.
The Productivity Gap: Education as Economic Stimulus
Completion is only half the story. For many educated young women, the pathway from classroom to career remains blocked. This disconnect between educational attainment and labour market participation is perhaps the most significant drag on Pakistan’s GDP. Despite girls frequently outperforming their male counterparts in national achievement tests, female labour force participation remains stagnant at 24 percent. We are, quite literally, leaving half of our national talent on the sidelines.
Closing this gap requires a deliberate focus on labour market pathways for women. Safe and accessible transport, childcare provision, flexible work arrangements, and skills aligned with emerging sectors are central to unlocking the economic returns of education.
The Gendered Cost of Climate Disruption
Translating demographic change into sustainable progress requires more than just policy rhetoric; it requires gender-responsive budgeting. In a country where climate shocks are increasingly shaping development outcomes, investments in education and skills must also account for the disruptions that threaten learning continuity. This, in turn, requires national and provincial allocations to move beyond recurring salary costs and invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, including flood-resilient schools and adaptive learning systems.
As Malala Fund’s work in climate-affected regions has demonstrated, environmental shocks are not gender-neutral; they act as a catalyst for child marriage and permanent school dropouts. A resilient social contract must ensure that a single monsoon does not equate to a lost generation.
The Path Forward
Pakistan’s future will not be decided in its ministries, but in its classrooms. If we continue to allow 13.4 million girls to be sidelined, our demographic dividend will inevitably sour into a source of social and economic volatility. However, if we fulfill the promise of secondary education for every girl, we unlock a reservoir of productivity that can redefine the nation’s trajectory.
We must stop treating girls' education as a charitable extracurricular and start treating it as the core of our national solvency. This shift begins by listening to the voices of the girls themselves, who understand their worth better than the systems meant to serve them. As a young student eloquently put it at one of our recent convenings: "I am not a burden; I am the foundation."
1. Pakistan Institute of Education (PIE) and Malala Fund Pakistan. Girls’ Education Statistics and Trends Report (GESTR) 2023–24. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 2024.
2. Riaz, Nishat. 2026. Why Pakistan is letting its girls fall behind. The Express Tribune, 28 January. Available at https://tribune.com.pk/story/2589392/why-pakistan-is-letting-its-girls-fall-behind