Perspectives of the knowledge-based economy on the educational sector: spotlight on Pakistan

Abstract

Technological developments in the twentieth century have transformed the majority of wealth-creating work from physically-based to ‘knowledge-based’. Therefore technology and knowledge are the key factors of production. With increased mobility of information and the global work force, knowledge and expertise can be transported instantaneously around the world, and any advantage gained by one organization can be eliminated by competitive improvements overnight by another organization. The objective of the study is to evaluate educational status of different countries including Pakistan i.e., net primary enrolment, gross secondary enrolment, net tertiary enrolment etc. through different national and international reports between the years 2008 and 2010. The result shows that particularly, Pakistan's education sector performance is not very encouraging. The low enrolment rates at the primary level, wide disparities between regions and gender, lack of trained teachers, deficiency of proper teaching materials and poor physical infrastructure of schools indicate the poor performance of this sector. Education is the most important mode to stand firm in the competitive world of global economy which is by and large based on knowledge.