Educated, but Not Ethical

Pakistan has no shortage of lessons on honesty, integrity and moral conduct. Schools teach good manners, religious institutions preach truthfulness, and public officials routinely invoke justice, responsibility and public service. Yet the distance between these professed values and everyday conduct remains deeply troubling. Why does education so often fail to produce the ethical behaviour society expects from it?

Consider the contradictions around us. A politician makes promises that are never intended to be fulfilled. A food trader adulterates essential commodities to increase profits. A teacher neglects classroom responsibilities while encouraging students to pay for private tuition. An educational institution compromises academic standards for financial gain. A shopkeeper manipulates weighing scales, while a student searches for shortcuts to obtain a degree without acquiring the knowledge it is supposed to certify.

These are not identical offences, nor do they all have the same causes. But they share a troubling characteristic: personal advantage is placed above honesty, professional responsibility and the rights of others. When such conduct becomes commonplace, the problem extends beyond individual character. It raises questions about the institutions that shape behaviour and the society that tolerates it.

Education must therefore face an uncomfortable question: are we educating citizens, or merely qualifying individuals to compete for jobs, status and material success?

The tyranny of qualifications

Pakistan’s education system places considerable emphasis on examinations, grades and degrees. Academic achievement matters. A country needs competent doctors, engineers, teachers, administrators and scientists. But qualifications are valuable only when they reflect genuine learning, professional competence and responsible practice.

The learning crisis is a useful starting point. According to ASER Pakistan’s 2023 national rural assessment, only 50 per cent of surveyed children aged 5 to 16 could read a story in Urdu, while 46.3 per cent could perform division. These figures measure foundational learning, not moral character. Nevertheless, they raise an uncomfortable question about a system in which years of schooling do not reliably translate into basic competencies.

Source: ASER Pakistan, National Report 2023⁠

The problem is not simply that students fail to learn. It is that academic systems can encourage the pursuit of results at the expense of the process by which those results should be earned. When marks become more important than mastery, and qualifications more important than competence, education risks losing its substantive purpose.

The consequences can extend into higher education. The Higher Education Commission maintains an official list of illegal, fake and unrecognised institutions and campuses, warning students to verify institutional recognition before enrolling. The existence of such a list demonstrates the need for effective regulation and informed choices by students and families. It does not, of course, establish that all institutions or qualifications are unreliable.

Source: Higher Education Commission, Illegal, Fake and Unrecognised Institutions⁠

A particularly troubling illustration emerged in Sindh in March 2026. According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, the provincial government dismissed the Controller of Examinations at the Mirpurkhas education board following an inquiry into alleged manipulation of matriculation and intermediate results. The government reported that 1,068 matriculation and 1,471 intermediate marksheets and certificates issued between 2021 and 2025 had been cancelled.

Source: Associated Press of Pakistan, March 31, 2026⁠

This case should not be taken as evidence that every examination board is corrupt. Its significance is more specific: when the integrity of the institution responsible for certifying academic achievement is compromised, the damage extends beyond individual candidates. Honest students may be disadvantaged, qualifications lose credibility, and confidence in merit is undermined.

Education cannot cultivate integrity if the mechanisms that certify learning are themselves vulnerable to manipulation.

The classroom teaches more than the curriculum

Schools shape character not through textbooks alone but through the conduct of teachers, the fairness of examinations and the standards enforced in everyday school life.

A teacher who preaches honesty but neglects teaching duties sends a contradictory message. So does an institution that formally condemns favouritism but tolerates it in practice. Where private tuition becomes a means of compensating for deliberately inadequate classroom teaching, a public responsibility risks being distorted into a commercial arrangement.

The lesson students absorb may be more powerful than the one they memorise: rules can be observed in theory while personal interest takes precedence in practice.

Examination boards themselves recognise the seriousness of this problem. The Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education publishes rules defining unfair means, including copying, impersonation, forgery and attempts to obtain undue advantage in marking. Its regulations provide for penalties, including cancellation of results and disqualification in specified cases.

Source: FBISE, Examination Regulations⁠

The existence of these rules is important, but rules on paper cannot guarantee integrity. Their effectiveness depends on consistent enforcement against students, supervisory staff and any other individuals found responsible for misconduct. Punishing a student for cheating while overlooking organised assistance or manipulation by adults would address only part of the problem.

The same principle applies to religious education. Religious teachings can provide a powerful foundation for truthfulness, compassion, justice and respect for human dignity. But no institution is immune to misconduct. Allegations of abuse involving children in any educational or religious setting demand impartial investigation, effective safeguarding and protection for victims. Religious authority, like professional or political authority, must never become a shield against accountability.

The answer is not to disparage teachers or religious institutions collectively. It is to insist that those entrusted with shaping character must themselves be held to credible standards of conduct.

Society is the second classroom

It would be convenient to place the entire burden on schools. It would also be mistaken.

Children observe the behaviour of parents, business owners, public officials, religious leaders and other influential adults. They notice who keeps promises, who cheats customers, who uses connections to evade rules and who succeeds despite violating the standards preached to others.

A child taught to tell the truth at school may see adults conceal facts for personal advantage. A student instructed to respect the law may watch influential people escape its consequences. A young graduate encouraged to work honestly may enter a professional environment in which connections, manipulation and deception appear more rewarding than competence.

Such contradictions create a hidden curriculum. Society teaches through example, and its practical lessons can overwhelm formal instruction.

Food safety provides another illustration of the distance between professed responsibility and actual conduct. According to a Punjab government performance report, the Punjab Food Authority conducted 339,229 inspections between January and November 2025, issued 30,637 fines and reported the disposal of more than 1.4 million litres or kilograms of unsafe milk, as recorded in its combined commodity figures.

Source: Government of Punjab, Chief Minister’s Anti-Adulteration Drive report⁠

These figures demonstrate the scale of regulatory activity and the continuing need to protect consumers from unsafe food. They do not establish that every food business is dishonest, nor do inspection figures alone measure the prevalence of adulteration across the country. Their significance lies in showing why professional standards require more than appeals to conscience: consumers need effective inspection, reliable testing and credible consequences for deliberate violations.

The broader lesson is that ethical conduct cannot be secured by education alone. Knowledge can improve judgement and expose injustice, but it does not determine how a person chooses to use it. An educated individual may understand the consequences of adulterating food or abusing public office perfectly well and still proceed because the anticipated gain outweighs the perceived risk.

Education is necessary for a more ethical society, but it is not sufficient.

When dishonesty pays

The normalisation of dishonesty cannot be understood without examining incentives and accountability.

If a trader can adulterate food without meaningful consequences, a teacher can neglect students without professional scrutiny, or an institution can issue unrecognised qualifications without effective regulatory intervention, misconduct becomes easier to sustain. If public officials are protected by influence and political loyalty rather than judged by consistent standards, the authority of the law is weakened.

Selective accountability is particularly damaging. Punishing the powerless while overlooking the misconduct of the influential teaches society that the rules are not universal and that status matters more than principle.

Economic hardship can encourage unethical behaviour, particularly where people struggle to meet basic needs. But poverty cannot explain every instance of dishonesty, nor can it excuse the deliberate exploitation of others. Many acts of misconduct arise from greed, entitlement or confidence that wrongdoing will go undetected.

The crucial point is that moral character and institutional design cannot be separated. A society should encourage people to act honestly while ensuring that dishonest conduct does not become a route to personal success.

Reconnecting education with character

Pakistan does not need another declaration that morality is important. It needs to make ethical conduct an observable and enforceable part of education and professional life.

First, schools must move beyond treating character education as another examinable subject. Students should learn through community service, fair competition, collaborative work and opportunities to take responsibility for their decisions. They should be encouraged to question wrongdoing respectfully and understand the consequences of dishonesty for others.

Second, teachers must be supported and held accountable. Recruitment should be merit based, classroom performance should be monitored fairly, and conflicts of interest involving private tuition should be addressed through clear rules and credible enforcement. Teachers deserve professional respect, but respect must accompany responsibility.

Third, examinations and qualifications must regain their credibility. Independent assessment, effective measures against cheating, verification of credentials and meaningful penalties for degree fraud are essential. Where allegations of manipulation arise, investigations must be impartial, findings must be made public where legally appropriate, and those found responsible must face proportionate consequences. Honest students must not bear the cost of institutional misconduct.

Fourth, child protection must be non-negotiable. Schools, colleges, universities, mosques and madaris need clear safeguarding procedures, confidential reporting mechanisms and impartial investigations. Institutions must protect children rather than their own reputations when credible allegations of abuse arise.

Finally, ethical education must extend beyond the classroom. Consumer protection authorities must act against adulteration and fraudulent weights. Professional regulators must address misconduct. Public institutions must enforce rules consistently, while political leaders must demonstrate that public office is a trust rather than a private entitlement.

None of these reforms will succeed if accountability is selective or if those responsible for enforcing standards are themselves permitted to disregard them.

The measure of education

A degree is evidence of academic achievement, not a certificate of moral superiority. Nor should people without formal qualifications be presumed less ethical than graduates. Integrity depends on individual choices, social influences and institutional conditions, not educational credentials alone.

Yet education has a responsibility that extends beyond imparting information. It should cultivate the ability to distinguish right from wrong, the courage to resist improper pressure and the understanding that personal success cannot legitimately be built on the deliberate harm of others.

The test is straightforward. Does a student refuse to cheat when cheating would improve a grade? Does a trader sell safe and fairly measured products when customers cannot easily detect deception? Does a teacher fulfil professional duties even when no supervisor is watching? Does a public official uphold the rules when bending them would benefit a powerful person?

These questions cannot be answered by examination results alone.

Pakistan cannot educate its way out of corruption while continuing to reward corrupt conduct. Equally, it cannot build an ethical society through punishment alone without cultivating the conscience to act rightly when wrongdoing offers an advantage.

The task is to bring three things into alignment: what education teaches, what institutions practise and what society rewards.

Until that happens, we may continue to produce more graduates without necessarily producing more responsible citizens. The challenge is not merely to educate Pakistan, but to ensure that education helps Pakistan become a society in which honesty is practised, competence is respected and integrity is no longer a disadvantage.