Education and Health Spending in the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26

Overview

The Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26 records combined public spending on education and health at 1.6 percent of GDP, well below UNESCO's benchmark for education spending alone. This commentary reads the same survey's own indicators against that spending level and finds a split: coverage-based measures, literacy, immunisation, infant and neonatal mortality, improved, while nutrition indicators, child stunting and undernourishment, both sit above the South Asian regional average.

It traces part of the gap to an incomplete devolution of education and health under the 18th Amendment, which leaves the 0.8 percent spending ratio in each sector without a clear line of accountability between federal and provincial governments, and argues that disaggregating the national figure by level of government is necessary before the remedy can be correctly targeted.