On social media, a wave of videos recently exposed students using advanced gadgets to cheat in examinations. While the focus has been on policing misconduct, a deeper issue remains unexamined: students are not disengaging from education because of a lack of discipline, but because they increasingly question its value.
For most students in Pakistan, particularly those enrolled in public institutions, education is not pursued for the love of knowledge – it is pursued as a means of survival. They enter universities not to explore ideas or develop intellectual depth, but to break free from the cycle of poverty that defines their circumstances.
Within this reality, classrooms are not spaces of curiosity but arenas of economic urgency. Students study not to understand, but to pass; not to learn, but to qualify. The goal is not enlightenment – it is employment.
Similarly, contrary to popular perception, the poor do not stay out of school because they are ignorant, regressive, or unaware of education’s value. They stay out or drop out because, for them, education often does not make economic sense. The crisis is not one of awareness. It is one of the incentives.
“Sir, if I study, who will earn?” The question did not come from a textbook. It came from a 15-year-old boy standing outside a government school in rural Punjab. His father was ill. His younger siblings depend on him. For him, education is not a dream deferred; it is income denied.
Policy discourse, however, prefers a simpler story. The underlying assumption is that if supply exists, demand will follow. But this assumption collapses when confronted with lived reality. For low-income households, education is an investment, not a slogan. And like any investment, it comes with costs. The most immediate cost is income foregone.
A child in school is a child not working. For a middle-class household, this may be manageable for some time. For a poor family, it can be the difference between subsistence and survival.
A mother in an urban katchi abadi put it bluntly: “School se roti nahi aati” – school does not put food on the table.
The second cost is uncertainty. Education promises future returns, but those returns are neither guaranteed nor immediate. In an economy marked by high unemployment, underemployment and stagnant wages, the link between education and income is weak. Young people see graduates driving ride-hailing bikes, preparing endlessly for competitive exams, or waiting years for a government job that may never come.
“I have a bachelor’s degree,” says a student in Lahore, “but my younger brother, who learned mobile repair, is earning more than me.”
This is not an anecdote. It is a signal. When the labour market fails to reward qualifications consistently, education loses its credibility.
Economists have long understood this logic. Education, as framed by Gary Becker, is an investment in human capital, a trade-off between present costs and future gains. But when expected returns fall below those costs, the investment simply does not hold.
In Pakistan, returns to education are modest and uneven. The quality of schooling is often poor, learning outcomes are weak, and degrees frequently fail to translate into employable skills. For many families, the equation is brutally simple: years of schooling versus uncertain employment.
In a system where jobs are often secured through connections rather than competence, education loses its role as a signal of ability. This erosion of trust has consequences. Motivation declines. Effort weakens. The best and brightest seek opportunities abroad, turning education into an exit strategy rather than a tool for national development.
Meanwhile, the state continues to expand the system, more schools, more enrolment, more degrees, without addressing the underlying dilemmas.
The result is a paradox: more education, but less value.
The poor are not resisting education. They are responding to it with clarity, with realism, and with an understanding of incentives that policymakers often lack. Until education delivers credible returns, it will remain what it increasingly is for millions: a costly venture they simply cannot afford.
Artice (Opinion) Published in Express Tribune on, April 16th, 2026.
