Every year on August 14, Pakistan turns into a sea of green and white. Flags wave from rooftops, children carry miniature flags, patriotic songs fill the air, and social media overflows with messages of pride. It is a day of celebration.

But it should also be a day for reflection.

Seventy-nine years after independence, one of the most important questions we should ask ourselves is not how far Pakistan has travelled, but why, after travelling for so long, we so often find ourselves back at the starting point.

Governments should have every right to improve policies that are failing, but political change should not automatically mean institutional reset.

Governments should have every right to improve policies that are failing, but political change should not automatically mean institutional reset.

Pakistan has never suffered from a shortage of plans. We have had economic strategies, education policies, health reforms, infrastructure programmes, investment initiatives, and ambitious development targets. Governments have announced reforms, established committees and presented visions for transformation.

Our failure has been in sustaining them.

Too much of our policymaking has been tied to political tenures rather than national timelines. Priorities shift, programmes lose momentum, and institutions are repeatedly redirected. Instead of improving what already exists, there is often a temptation to replace it. The result is a state that frequently loses institutional memory precisely when it should be building upon it.

Yet the greatest challenges facing Pakistan cannot be solved within the tenure of any single government.

Education reform requires a generation. Population management demands decades of........

© Daily Times