Degrees are expensive, skill is what makes money

The education system is broken by design

Muzamil opens by recalling Azad’s five-year arc on YouTube. Early videos drew single-digit views. “5-6 views, probably I was refreshing, watching how many people are watching,” Azad says. Yet he did not stop. He had conviction in a message that most people rejected. the message. education, not degrees. “Someone said, tell them what you have achieved. I said, OK I’ll tell you. At that time, you were in the hacker mode. I made a thing and people are watching. It was in the humble mode. I became a dollar millionaire at 21.”

The core problem, he argues, is that the Pakistani education system teaches compliance, not capability. “We come from a background where a child asks questions, then stop. That’s wrong. Let them ask questions. This child is creative.” Muzamil nods. Critical thinking. the universities, Azad insists, are designed to destroy it.

Degrees don’t make you employable

Azad is blunt. “Other than a select few, doctor, medical, there will be a handful of practices which you can’t afford without formal training. Licensebased degrees, basically.” Everything else. bullshit. “the Pakistani government would say that 78% degree holders are unemployable. India’s government, which earns us a lot of money in IT, says that 84% of the graduates, they are unemployable.”

He does not stop there. Elon Musk says the same thing. Microsoft and Google, after releasing their own certifications, have signaled that the university degree is not a measure of merit. “the job should go to the person who is rightful, who is skilled. Who is skilled, right. Who can get the job done.”

Muzamil pushes back. “there will be a handful of practices which you can’t afford without formal training.” Azad agrees. But the vast majority of jobs do not require a degree. they require a portfolio. “the businessman doesn’t really care about the hoopla. He wants to do actual work, make money and give me a benefit.”

What is Azad actually teaching

Azad started with 22 free institutes, funded partly by retired hardware from his Dubai office. “I had 22 training institutes in 2008. In my Dubai office, we retired our PC season. So I thought instead of just throwing them away, we would send Pakistan.” He started with a girls’ college and moved outward. By 2019, he ran paid programs in video editing, graphic design, programming. His graphic design course costs 40,000 rupees, and students receive tablets to learn digital drawing.

the pace is brutal by university standards. “You learn Photoshop, Illustrator on the PC. Then you learn drawing from your hand. And I think that will give you the edge over the next country.” the entire graphic design curriculum, he claims, takes weeks to months, not four years.

His latest students are making income. “He’s going to become a hero tomorrow. He’ll see him and see him, he’ll be coming forward. I had a guy, Hassan, interviewed him, he was making something like 50 lakh rupees a month.” Others, Umar and Usman, picked up freelancing skills through his program and earned between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars per month on Fiverr.

the problem with Pakistani hiring culture

Even as global companies and tech leaders abandon the degree requirement, Pakistan’s hiring remains locked to credentials. Muzamil asks. “if you were to hire someone for your Dubai office, you would go for skills, yes?” Azad agrees, but notes the trend is only beginning to shift in Pakistan. “You can see the trend. It’s coming your way. But you’re like, no, I won’t go over it. I will have a few people who have bought it with them. You can see the trend is changing. Now 50% to 60% companies don’t want to ask. 40% they have started from zero.”

the mentality, he argues, runs deeper than hiring. Pakistanis chase titles because of colonial inheritance. “We come from a background, a socialist state where the government looks after you. But there was a mentality that government’s job, government’s job will get you. You’ll get access. You’ll get a pension, etc.”

Government jobs are shrinking. Technology and outsourcing have gutted that model. But the cultural reflex remains. degrees feel safe. skills feel risky. Azad reverses the logic. “Why waste 6 years of your life?” By his math, a 6-year degree costs millions in opportunity and tuition. A 3-to-6-month skill course costs tens of thousands.

Why women are actually safer with skills

Muzamil raises a criticism. Azad’s message about dropping formal education may sound tone-deaf when aimed at women in a society where girls’ education is already fragile.

Azad reframes. His point is the opposite. Women, particularly in Pakistan, face abuse and unemployment if unskilled. A degree does not protect them. A digital skill does. “Ladies, go learn a skill and prove these men wrong. You can be better. You can earn an iszadar income sitting from home, online. And you can be more skilled, more educated than men. Degree is nothing.”

He cites a father who enrolled his daughter in Azad’s institute. Within a month, she was earning. within two months, she was employed by a foreign company at 20,000 rupees per month. “the ladies. the girls will get a job. Sir, we need 20,000 monthly fixed. And she added 10, 20 of your videos. So we always try to give the girls.”

the next chapter. from survival to manufacturing

Azad’s vision has expanded beyond training. He wants to move Pakistan from labor export to manufacturing. “We are unskilled, unskilled people are selling in foreign. the vast majority are taxi drivers that are selling labor.” But if those laborers had skills, the equation flips. “I want to show people how to use tools. I taught my team to play mitre, I taught jigs to play, I taught drillings to cut a piece, I taught painting, so they were like enjoying it.”

His ultimate bet. that within a generation, enough skilled people will exist that Pakistan stops exporting labor and starts building. “We don’t have to write these assets to them. we cannot say what are they saying because they are allies of ours. But right now we don’t eat from our house because our people are weak, unskilled. When that changes, inshallah.”

Muzamil closes by asking if Azad believes Pakistan will reach middle-income status in 20 years. Azad is confident. “You can see the trend is changing. the snowball effect, right. We’re going to go more than a hundred something percent. we’re going to be managers in the whole world.”