Academia is boring, studying is tedious and degrees are useless. Kids go to school or college to socialise and hang out with their friends, flirt with girls (if you’re privileged enough to go to a liberal, co-ed school) and to avoid spending all day at home being shamed by their families into getting a job.

Now, I have no problem with these bright-eyed few who equate to future greatness. I’d just like to point out that they are sorely mistaken if they think their hard work matters. Because in Pakistan, we don’t care about education. We pay lip service like every other country (good politics), but we don’t do anything about it (great politics). After all, why bother doing something about a ‘problem’ no one cares about.

Firstly, the numbers speak for themselves. We spend more on a single piece of military hardware than our entire education budget; budget for defense is Rs 442 billion versus Rs 34.5 billion for education. It’s a good thing that foot soldiers are cheap and largely uneducated.

Secondly, contrary to popular opinion, having a wall full of degrees doesn’t make you successful. It means you spent a lot of money and time in the hope that people will find it impressive. If one wants to succeed in Pakistan, you need contacts and friends in high places

From a financial stand point, all our political head honchos are a raging success, and they did it without that measly piece of paper that everyone contends has value. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't need one either. Education does not equate to success or measure ability, it measures time wasted, opportunities lost.

I am tired about hearing how much untapped 'talent' there is in Pakistan. Now if there was so much talent, you'd think they'd be doing more with it. But they are not. In the unlikely scenario that this youth is more talented than your average vegetable, what haven’t done much other than complain about everything?

Pakistan is an agricultural economy. We grow stuff. We don't make computer chips. If you gave an average Pakistani farmer a fistful of $1000 Pentium chips, he'd dump them in his fields and try to grow it and when that doesn’t work; he'll blame the fertiliser company, the government and the Zionists. We don’t need more computer science majors; we need people to work the fields and drive those government subsidised tractors. Besides a computer programmer would make for a terrible farmer, unless of course, he plays Farmville.

An uneducated electorate equals a subservient electorate. No Pakistani politician has ever democratically won his seat thanks to the 0.5% privileged, rabble-rousing educated segment of the population. They win because of the masses that are illiterate. Political parties have a greater scope to fool the masses if they haven't been taught how to think.

So, let's stop pretending that education really matters. Over half our country is illiterate and they seem to be doing alright. There aren't any revolutionaries threatening to break down doors of parliament demanding things like good governance neither do we have any pictures of famine on the front pages of any newspapers. Things are A-OK.

In Pakistan degrees don’t matter. There, I said it. We don't need education. Well, let’s be generous and say we don’t need any more education (wouldn’t want those feisty ghost schools to go out of business). Why bother investing in education when you can invest in bombs, bullets and government perks? No one care about your degree. At least not in Pakistan.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.