Across educational institutions in Pakistan, a silent yet consequential shift in mindset is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook. The younger generation i.e., particularly Gen Z & Alpha, has not disengaged from the country; rather, they have moved beyond the dated modes of thinking that continue to dominate its boomer-based country leadership. Their aspirations, expectations, and worldviews have evolved, while much of the national decision‑making remains constrained by boomer‑era assumptions and structures. This generational drift is not unique to Pakistan. Several neighbouring South Asian economies have already experienced the tangible consequences i.e., political, social, and economic, of similar shifts, where youths’ dissatisfaction with outdated governance models has reshaped public discourse and, in some cases, national trajectories.
As an educationist, I spend most of my academic life (largely in the Western higher education system) in close contact with younger generation (e.g., at the UG, PGT and PGR levels) in the teaching and mentoring them, assessing their work, and increasingly, learning from them, as they carry today’s energy, curiosity, and openness to new ideas. This lived academic closeness provides a grounded and comparative perspective that is not fundamentally different from the experiences, aspirations, and challenges of students studying in universities across Pakistan. In assessing the overall situation, whether in western institutions or universities in Pakistan, it is evident that their perspectives continually challenge us to rethink established assumptions, engage with emerging trends, and adopt more inclusive and innovative approaches to knowledge creation. This reciprocal process of teaching and learning not only enriches my own academic practice but also reinforces my commitment to fostering an environment where critical thinking, creativity, and intellectual growth thrive. This proximity offers a viewpoint that perhaps is rarely available in the current policy circles or power corridors in Pakistan. It is not shaped by deliberately organised briefings or opinion polls but emerges organically. From this mindset position, one reality stands out clearly: Pakistan’s younger generation has not disengaged because it is indifferent or unconcerned; it has disengaged simply because it is unconvinced and equally uncertain of the leadership who still choses to live in the past.
The Gen Z & Alpha mindset is often summed up in a single line: either convince me or confuse me. They demand clarity, authenticity, and most importantly intellectual honesty, and if they do not get what they expect, they are quick to call it out. Sadly, many from the boomer generation, especially within institutional and leadership roles (including at the government level), are too busy setting their ways to engage meaningfully with this shift, which is confusing them. This creates a widening generational disconnect: one side eager for transparent dialogue and the other still relying on hierarchical, top‑down communication. Yet, for those willing to listen, Gen Z & Alpha offers something invaluable. They question and challenge us to be sharper in our thinking, clearer in our arguments, and more agile in how we teach, lead, and learn. Their expectations push institutions to evolve from rigid traditions toward more open, critical, and dynamic forms of intellectual engagement. And in that sense, they are not just students of the present, but catalysts for the future.
This distinction surely matters because, as they say, the future is no longer something distant; it is already here.
For decades, indeed, since 1948, the state in Pakistan has operated on the assumption that national attachment can be engineered through curricula, ceremonies, speeches, and symbolic displays. From an educational standpoint, this logic is fundamentally flawed and increasingly out of step with a generation that questions, probes, and demands coherence. Values cannot be imposed; they are internalised through lived experience. When institutions function as they are meant to, when effort is genuinely rewarded, when merit guides decisions and the right people are placed in the right roles, and when systems are fair, transparent, and predictable, allegiance emerges organically. When these conditions fail, no amount of instruction, patriotic messaging, or performative visits to educational institutions can fill the gap.
In assessing the educational institutions today, students are not at all confused about Pakistan. In fact, they are acutely aware of the overall critical situation. They understand how the world works because they already operate within it. They compare governance models, labour markets and opportunities across borders in real time. They know what meritocracy looks like because they can see it elsewhere. This exposure has not produced rebellion among the Gen Z & Alpha; it has produced intelligence with power to question yesterday’s leadership. What upsets established centres of authority is not disagreement, but disconnection from their way of reasoning. Gen Z & Alpha is not defiant; they are selective. They listen less to official narratives not out of hostility, but because those narratives increasingly fail to align with lived realities. When the gap between rhetoric and experience widens, credibility erodes. Education accelerates this process; it does not dampen it.
From an academic standpoint, the most striking trend is not protest, but exit thinking. Students increasingly frame success around mobility, remote work, international credentials and geographical flexibility. This is not a rejection of Pakistan; it is an adaptive response to uncertainty. When systems appear immovable with no empathy, individuals learn to move. Policy responses, however, often remain rooted in an older logic i.e., one that equates order with control and loyalty with compliance. Regulations expand, oversight tightens and access is restricted. Yet research across leadership studies, organisational behaviour and public administration consistently shows that control-based systems perform poorly in complex, knowledge-driven environments. They suppress innovation, discourage trust and ultimately weaken resilience. Remember, leadership without genuine empathy towards whom they govern, is a recipe for an absolute disaster.
What Pakistan faces, therefore, is not simply a governance problem, but a leadership mismatch that still chooses to live in the past.
The leadership style that once sustained hierarchical institutions i.e., centralised, command-oriented and wary of autonomy, may have had delivered some level of stability in boomer era. In a vigorous, AI-enabled and globally connected society, it increasingly produces the opposing outcome. Questioning is treated as disloyalty, mobility as threat, and openness as risk. Institutional governance systems under such conditions are expected to produce obedience rather than capability, compliance rather than creativity, reactive thinking rather than critical thinking. This is precisely the leadership model Pakistan no longer needs.
What is required instead is developmental and transformational leadership, i.e., leadership that views citizens not as subjects to be managed, but as assets to be supported. In practical terms, this means shifting from preserving authority to cultivating legitimacy; from short-term control to long-term competence; from managing risk to building intellectual capacity of younger generation. Educational institutions offer a useful parallel. The most successful universities today are not those that police thought, but those that create ecosystems, where ideas compete, collaboration thrives and failure is treated as learning rather than insubordination. Nations, like institutions, cannot innovate under permanent suspicion. Pakistani Gen Z & Alpha is not demanding perfection. They are demanding coherence and truth, policies aligned with contemporary economic realities, digital infrastructure that enables work rather than restricts it, economic frameworks that reward skill rather than proximity to power, and leadership that listens before it instructs.
It appears that the current Gen Z & Alpha in Pakistan is seemingly redefining patriotism. For this generation, nationalism is not performative, instead it is practical. It is about whether staying makes sense. Whether contributing feels meaningful. Whether the future appears negotiable rather than predetermined. When attachment turns conditional, it is not because citizens have failed the state, rather, it reflects a state that has failed to evolve with its people. Gen Z & Alpha is not waiting for permission to think differently; they already do. The question is whether leadership will adapt in time to retain their confidence or continue governing an audience that has quietly moved on. History suggests that authority rarely collapses when challenged directly. More often, it erodes when it loses relevance, when those being governed no longer expect, trust or even listen. Education does not radicalise societies; it reveals them to themselves. And what it is revealing in Pakistan today is a profound generational realignment, one that calls for a different kind of leadership: confident without being coercive, grounded in financial integrity and conviction, authoritative without being authoritarian, and strong enough to trust its own people.
Pakistan’s future will not be secured by tighter controls or louder messaging. It will be secured by leadership that understands a simple truth: in an educated society, belief and respect cannot be enforced, instead it must be earned through lived experiences.
As established educators, we can already see where this is heading. The only question is whether the current leadership in Pakistan is prepared or even willing to see it too.
With this, indeed, the time for boomers is over.
