page_title: Liaquat Ali Khan
section_title: Economic and education policy
hierarchical_section_title: Liaquat Ali Khan / Prime Minister of Pakistan (1947-51) / Economic and education policy
caption_attribution_description: English: Begum Liaquat Ali Khan Meets President of MIT; image shows Liaquat Ali Khan, Mrs. Killian, Begum Liaquat Ali Khan, James Rhyne Killian (from left to right)
context_page_description: Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, widely known as Quaid-e-Millat and Shaheed-e-Millat, was a Pakistani politician who was one of the leading founding fathers of Pakistan. A statesman, lawyer, and political theorist, he became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan; he also held cabinet portfolio as the first foreign, defence, and the frontier regions minister from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. Prior to the partition, Khan briefly tenured as the first finance minister in the interim government led by its Governor General Mountbatten.
  He was born in Karnal, then in the Punjab Province of British India on 1 October 1895. Liaquat Ali Khan was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University in India, and then at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Well-educated, he was a democratic political theorist who promoted parliamentarism in India. After first being invited by the Congress Party, he opted for the Muslim League led by influential Mohammad Ali Jinnah who was advocating the eradication of the injustices and ill-treatment meted out to Indian Muslims by the British government.
context_section_description: As Prime Minister Ali Khan took initiatives to develop educational infrastructure, science and technology in the country, with the intention of carrying the vision of successful development of science and technology to aid the essential foreign policy of Pakistan. In 1947, with Jinnah inviting physicist Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry to Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan called upon chemist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, awarding him citizenship, and appointing him as his first government science adviser in 1950. During this same time, Khan also called physicist and mathematician Raziuddin Siddiqui, asking him to plan and establish educational research institutes in the country and develop an anti India programs. Khan asked Ziauddin Ahmed to draft the national educational policy, which was submitted to his office in November 1947, and a road map to establishing education in the country was quickly adopted by Khan's government. 
  Khan's government authorized the establishment of the Sindh University. Under his government, science infrastructure was slowly built but he continued inviting Muslim scientists and engineers from India to Pakistan, believing it essential for Pakistan's future progress.
  In 1947, Khan and his Finance minister Malick Ghulam proposed the idea of Five-Year Plans, by putting the country's economic system on investment and capitalism grounds. Focusing on an initial planned economic system under the directives of private sector and consortium industries in 1948, economic planning began to take place during his time in office, but soon collapsed partly because of unsystematic and inadequate staffing. Khan's economic policies were soon heavily dependent on United States aid to the country. In spite of planning an independent economic policy, Khan's economic policies focused on the United States' aid programme, on the other hand, Nehru focused on socialism and went on to be a part of Non Aligned Movement. An important event during his premiership was the establishment of a National Bank in November 1949, and the installation of a paper currency mill in Karachi. Unlike his Indian counterpart Jawaharlal Nehru, under Khan Pakistan's economy was planned, but also an open free market economy
caption: Prime minister Ali Khan meeting with President and faculty of the MIT.
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