The future we are failing to build—III

Cotton, population, education and the AI economy

Some institutional failures can be concealed by subsidies and accounting adjustments. Others appear in shrinking agricultural output, classrooms without learning and a population growing faster than opportunity. Cotton, demographic policy and education reveal the same failure: institutions endure while their purposes remain unmet.

Cotton once underpinned Pakistan’s agricultural and textile economy. Its decline from the production levels of a decade ago has weakened rural incomes, and increased dependence on imported raw material. Reporting systems use different bale weights, but the sustained deterioration is beyond dispute.

The causes are familiar: unreliable seed, pests, weak extension services, research deficiencies, climate and irrigation pressures, high input costs and competition from crops offering better returns. Studies, conferences and reform proposals have repeatedly identified these weaknesses. Yet sustained recovery has not followed.

The failure is institutional. Responsibilities are dispersed across provincial departments, federal bodies, research institutions, seed regulators and market participants. Each can explain why another actor must move first. Farmers, however, cannot be expected to cultivate cotton for patriotic reasons. They respond to yields, prices and risks. Recovery requires reliable technology, research reaching farms, credible inputs and commercially viable returns—not another committee.

A failed cotton policy becomes an industrial problem. Lower production raises import exposure, strains foreign-exchange resources and reduces the resilience of the textile value chain. The costs travel across the economy while accountability remains fragmented.

Also read: The architecture of unaccountability—I

Pakistan adopted family-planning programmes early and reduced fertility over time, but the demographic transition has not merely slowed: the population growth rate has reversed direction and is increasing. The 2023 census recorded annual population growth of about 2.55 percent for 2017–2023, up from roughly 2.40 percent in the preceding period. These are census growth rates, not fertility rates, but the reversal is unmistakable, and must be treated as an urgent policy failure.

At an unchanged growth rate of 2.55 percent, population would approximately double in 28 years. That is an illustration, not a forecast. It shows the scale of the demand for schools, healthcare, housing, water, sanitation, energy and employment. Demographic obligations cannot be refinanced away.

Population growth is too consequential for Pakistan’s economic and social well-being to remain a peripheral policy concern. It demands a serious national discussion and a credible, workable and implementable plan to reduce the growth rate. Education must be one of its mainstays—especially girls’ education—alongside voluntary and informed family planning, accessible reproductive healthcare, women’s economic participation and reliable public services. The objective is not coercive population control, but to enable families to make informed choices while improving health, opportunity and human capital.

Education is central to that demographic response, but Pakistan’s education system is not yet equipped for the task. Too many children lack foundational literacy and numeracy, and too many advance through examinations without strong reasoning or problem-solving skills. World Bank learning-poverty assessments underscore the deficit. Degrees alone do not demonstrate research ability, technical fluency or readiness for productive work.

The weakness compounds across stages. Poor early literacy restricts later learning. Weak mathematics undermines science and engineering. Universities inherit students with uneven foundations, while employers find a mismatch between certificates and practical capability. Institutional success is measured by enrolment, buildings and credentials when it should be measured by what students actually know and can do.

Also read: The return of centralised control—II

Reform requires strong early-childhood support, effective teachers, credible assessment, foundational literacy and numeracy, serious science education and universities judged by research quality and graduate outcomes. Investment matters, but money without accountability for learning is insufficient.

AI, automation, advanced manufacturing and data-intensive services are changing the nature of work. Routine tasks will increasingly be automated, while human value will depend more heavily on judgment, adaptability, scientific understanding and the ability to use advanced tools. Pakistan cannot prepare for this transformation through ceremonial AI conferences and announcements of technology parks alone.

AI cannot replace literacy, quantitative reasoning or independent thought, nor can it compensate for unreliable electricity, poor connectivity or institutions that punish initiative. It can, however, multiply the productivity of people and organisations with sound foundations. Countries combining capable schools, research universities and competitive industries will gain; others risk a widening productivity and income gap.

Universities should collaborate with industry and public institutions on real problems in agriculture, energy, health, logistics and manufacturing. Students need practical access to computing resources, sound data practices and research mentorship. The state needs to create an environment in which innovation is rewarded rather than obstructed.

Cities, human capital and the geography of innovation

Pakistan is squandering another source of future productivity: the city itself. Universities, laboratories, startups, skilled workers and customers become more productive when they are connected in dense, accessible clusters. Yet our development model too often disperses housing across distant peripheries, consumes green space and requires young people to spend hours travelling instead of learning, working or creating.

The Planning Comm-ission’s 2011 Framework for Economic Growth envisaged vibrant cities as centres of entrepreneurship and innovation. It called for productive density, mixed-use zoning, vertical development, connectivity, stronger institutions and investment in human capital. This was an economic strategy, not merely an urban-design proposal; today’s continued preference for sprawl shows the gap between adopting a strategy and implementing it.

Edward Glaeser argues that proximity accelerates knowledge exchange, while Jane Jacobs showed how varied enterprises and everyday interaction generate new activity. Their insights matter in an AI-intensive economy: digital tools widen access to information, but research teams, technical firms, universities, investors and specialist labour markets still benefit from frequent contact.

Density must be planned, not confused with overcrowding. Successful urban growth balances verticality building, infill and appropriate outward expansion with transit, services and public space. Pakistan should allow greater height where infrastructure permits, protect parks and urban forests, and curb speculative sprawl onto productive farmland.

This connects directly to education and population policy. A growing youth population needs affordable access to schools, universities, technical institutes and jobs; sprawl raises the cost of that access. Pakistan cannot pursue an innovation economy while designing cities that separate people from opportunity and erode the environmental assets that make urban life viable.

Rapid population growth expands demand for education; inadequate education, particularly for girls, can slow improvements in reproductive health and the demographic transition. Weak skills reduce productivity and tax capacity, leaving fewer resources for better public services. Cotton’s decline erodes productive employment, while technological change increases the skills required to compete internationally. Poorly planned cities further separate people from education, jobs and networks of innovation. These failures reinforce one another.

The real test of government is not whether a ministry, university, research body or programme survives. It is whether children learn, farmers become more productive, families can make informed choices, graduates find productive work and cities connect people to opportunity. Pakistan’s most damaging institutional failure may not be what it has already wasted, but the future it is failing to prepare.

(Concluded)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026