President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Yasir Sakhi Butt Thursday said that there is a dire need to increase the educational budget because without education, Pakistan could not address the challenges. The ICCI President said that Government should encourage research in higher education institutions that would accelerate economic growth of the country. He said that Pakistan was now on just twelve countries that spend less than 2 percent of GDP on education, although education enjoyed the highest priority on the social sector agenda, which as a whole was poorly funded when compared to defence, general administration and debt servicing.
Yassar Sakhi Butt referred to a report that shows the budgetary allocation for education sector in various countries as per their GDPs; Cuba 18.7 percent of GDP, Brunei 9.1 percent, Iran 4.9 percent, Sweden 7.7 percent, UK 5.3 percent, US 5.7 percent, Malaysia 8.1 percent, Yemen 9.5 percent, India about 6 percent and Pakistan allocated less than 2 percent of GDP for education sector.
