UNDENIABLY, in Pakistan, a degree has become a piece of paper rather than a passport to a promising future. Thousands of youth graduate every year holding university degrees, yet they remain structurally unemployable. In fact, the market demands practical, technical, and digital competencies that traditional institutions failed to provide. The roots of this paradox lie in a colonial inheritance. The British built an educational system in the subcontinent that is unable to produce thinkers, intellectuals, scholars and scientists but to staff a clerical bureaucracy. Indeed, independence changed the flag only but not a colonial mindset and logic. Seven decades on, the Pakistan has only witnessed a degree inflation rather than competence, proficiency or expertise. The country, therefore, needs to rethink what it means to be an educated nation. The real measure of educational success should not be the number of universities, graduates or degrees awarded, but the number of people who can solve problems, create value, spur innovation and to compete internationally.

Every year, thousands of young men and women enter colleges and universities with dreams of becoming doctors, engineers, lawyers, bankers, teachers, civil servants and entrepreneurs. Families make enormous financial sacrifices to educate their children. They believe that a degree will open the doors to employment, dignity and economic security. Yet, after graduation, many discover an uncomfortable reality that a degree is no longer a guarantee of employability. We are producing graduates, but not necessarily producing employable graduates. We have expanded higher education, but failed to cultivate skills, innovation, critical thinking and practical training. The question Pakistan must therefore confront is not simply, how many graduates are we producing? It is: What........

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