Why Does Pakistan Spend More on Cash Support Than on Education?

The seven-to-one comparison, with the qualifications that complicate it

By the ISN Media desk • June 2026 • Approx. 5-min read

This is a short, neutral answer about a comparison often made in Pakistan's budget debate. The figures are Budget Estimates from the Government of Pakistan, in billions of rupees. For the full analysis, see cash support versus education.

Why does Pakistan spend more on cash support than education?

At the federal level, cash support receives about seven times what education does: the Benazir Income Support Programme is about Rs 844.8 billion against federal education of about Rs 118 billion. The main reasons are that cash support is a single federal programme while most education spending is provincial, so the federal comparison overstates the true gap, and that cash transfers are favoured, including by the International Monetary Fund, as an efficient way to reach the poor and cushion them against economic shocks. The comparison is accurate but carries important qualifications.

The comparison, and its limits

The seven-to-one ratio compares a federal cash programme with a federal education line. But most education spending is provincial under the eighteenth amendment, so money taken from federal cash support would not automatically become federal school funding, and the cash programme itself includes an education-linked stipend tied to school attendance. Read against total national education spending, federal and provincial together, the gap is narrower, though cash support remains large relative to what the country invests in schooling.

Why cash support is favoured

Cash transfers are favoured for reasons of immediacy and targeting. A poor family needs help now, not in the years it takes to educate a child, and a means-tested transfer reaches that family directly. The IMF supports expanding direct cash because it reaches the poor more efficiently than broad subsidies and cushions households against austerity. So the high allocation to cash support reflects both domestic priorities and the reform path agreed with lenders.

The criticism

The criticism, made in opinion form by the writer Asad Baig, is that a permanent, growing handout relieves poverty without ending it, while the same money invested in education would equip the next generation to leave poverty for good. He argues that the absence of any published figure for how many families graduate off cash support suggests it sustains rather than ends poverty. He sets out this case in cash is not a plan. The counter-argument is that cash and education are separate needs, not alternatives, and that cutting cash would harm the most vulnerable first.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Pakistan spend more on cash support than education? At the federal level cash support is about seven times education, partly because cash support is a single federal programme while most education spending is provincial, and partly because cash transfers are favoured as an efficient way to reach the poor.

Is the seven-to-one comparison fair? It is accurate but needs qualification. It compares a federal cash programme with a federal education line, when most education spending is provincial, and the cash programme itself includes an education-linked stipend.

Why are cash transfers favoured? Because they reach the poor directly and immediately, and the IMF supports them as more efficient than broad subsidies and as a cushion against austerity.

What is the criticism of this priority? That a permanent handout relieves poverty without ending it, while the same money invested in education would help the next generation leave poverty for good, as argued by Asad Baig in cash is not a plan.

What is the counter-argument? That cash and education are separate needs, not alternatives, and that cutting cash support would harm the most vulnerable first.

Is the cash-versus-education choice the real issue? Some analysts argue it is too narrow. Both lines are small beside interest and defence, so the binding constraint is the band of spending left after the largest claims are met. Expanding either substantially runs into the same wall without addressing the debt burden.

Sources and notes

• Government of Pakistan, Federal Budget 2026-27: BISP and education figures are Budget Estimates in billions of rupees. This article reports both sides; the view that cash is not a plan is attributed to Asad Baig.

Related reading

• The full analysis: cash support versus education
• The opinion: cash is not a plan
• How much does Pakistan spend on education, what is BISP