TAXILA, March 18: Federal College of Science and Commerce, Wah, organised an event where speakers discussed the importance of education and noted the great strides Pakistan must make to `stand side by side with other nations in the global village`.

After the school`s principal, Iftikhar Ahmed, highlighted some of the institution`s achievements over the past year, the President of the Youth Welfare Society, Asif Mehmood Malik, laid out some of the problems in Pakistan`s education sector, whose current budget is only 1.8 per centof the GDP.

`And even this limited budget is spent poorly,` he said.

In the past two years, over 10 per cent of the allocated money was unspent, leading to Rs17.78 billion, in 2010-11, and Rs23.21 billion, in 2011-12, being wasted.

`Last year, the unspent amount was more than twice the federal government`s total spending on primary and secondary education,` he said.

`Education is the catalytic factor in changing a nation`s destiny,` said Zafar Hussain Shah, deputy district officer for Social Welfare.