The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2025 national report, officially released on March 26, 2026, shows that the number of "Out of School Children" (OOSC) aged 6-16 years in Pakistan is now 5 million, not 25 million generally reported.  "The findings on access are encouraging. Enrollment levels are high, with 92.2 percent of children aged 6–16 in school and only 7.7 percent out of school", says the ASER Pakistan 2025 report. ASER Pakistan is a citizen-led…

The F-1 visas for Pakistani students are soaring amid a global decline, according to the US government data. The US visas granted to Pakistani students climbed 44.3% in the first half of Fiscal Year 2025 (October 2024 to March 2025) with warming relations between the governments of the two countries. The number of visas granted to Indian students declined 44.5%, compared to  20% fewer US visas given to students globally in this period.  The number of US visas granted to Pakistani…

National University of Science and Technology (NUST), National Information Technology Board (NITB) and Telecom network operator Jazz have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop Pakistan’s first indigenous Large Language Model (LLM) with focus on Urdu, including datasets for Pashto and Punjabi languages. It is aimed at empowering individuals, businesses, and organizations with advanced…

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has taken the world by a storm. It has drawn the attention of academia, businesses and governments around the world.  This technology is expected to transform almost every sector from business and commerce to government, industries and defense. Are Pakistanis aware of its potential?  Is Pakistan getting ready for what is being described as the "AI…

Pakistani student enrollment in America's institutions of higher learning rose 16% last year, outpacing the record 12% growth in the number of international students hosted by the country. This puts Pakistan among eight sources in the top 20 countries with the largest increases in US enrollment. India saw the biggest increase at 35%, followed by Ghana 32%, Bangladesh and…

India is losing its best and brightest to the West, particularly to the United States, at an increasingly rapid pace. A 2023 study of the 1,000 top scorers in the 2010 entrance exams to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) — a network of prestigious institutions of higher learning based in 23 Indian cities — revealed the scale of the problem. Around 36% migrated abroad, and of the top 100 scorers, 62% left the country, according to a report in the science journal …

Dependency ratio, defined as the percentage of children and retirees to the working age population, is rapidly declining in Pakistan (current dependency ratio is 69.03%) and the rest of the developing nations of Asia and Africa. This demographic shift means that the world's richest and most powerful nations…

Interest in studying in Europe  is growing in certain key markets like Pakistan and Bangladesh in particular, according to a recent report on foreign students coming to Europe. Although India generates the largest share of relative demand, this fluctuates drastically and has gradually declined overall in recent years, the report adds.  …

Bollywood star Kajol has said at a recent event that Indian political leaders are uneducated. Though she did not name anyone, she is facing vicious attacks by Modi Bhakts, a label embraced by the staunch supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Here's what she said, "Change especially in a country like India is slow. It’s very very slow because for one we are steeped in our tradition, steeped in our thought process and, of course, it has to be with tradition. You have political…

Number of Indian Muslims attending colleges and universities has declined by 8% to 1.9 million in 2020-21, from 2.1 million in 2019-20, according to Indian government data. In the same period, the higher education enrollment in Pakistan has risen about 12%, from 2.7 million to over 3 million. Both India and Pakistan have about the same population of Muslims. …

Growing access to smartphones and Internet connectivity is transforming the lives of women in rural Pakistan. They are acquiring knowledge, accessing healthcare and finding economic opportunities.  A recent UNDP report  titled "DigitAll: What happens when women of Pakistan get access to digital and tech…

It is International Women's Day on March 8, and its theme is "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality". It's a day to highlight Pakistani women's participation in science and technology. Nearly half a million Pakistani women are currently enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses at universities, accounting for nearly 46% of all STEM students in higher…

Over a million students, about a third of total 3 million students (1.4 million women, 1.6 million men) enrolled in Pakistani universities and degree colleges, are currently studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM Education), according to data released by the country's Higher Education Commission (HEC). Of these students, 415,008 are studying natural sciences and mathematics,…

Over 75% of the world's poor deprived of basic living standards (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing) live in India compared to 4.6% in Bangladesh and 4.1% in Pakistan, according to a recently released OPHI/UNDP report on multidimensional poverty.  Here's what the report says: "More than 45.5 million poor people are deprived in only these four indicators (nutrition, cooking fuel, sanitation and housing). Of those people, 34.4 million live in India, 2.1 million in Bangladesh and…

Pakistan is a young nation with a lot of unrealized potential. As the country turns 75, it is important to recognize that all basic indicators of progress such as income, employment, education, health, nutrition, electricity use, telecommunications and transportation have shown significant improvements over the last seven and a half decades. These improvements can be accelerated if Pakistan can overcome its economic …

The United Arab Emirates, a grouping of  seven Arab Muslim kingdoms, has now become the number one destination for education and employment of people from Hindu India, according to the government data from the two countries. …

Hindu Americans have surpassed Jewish Americans in education and rival them in household incomes. How did immigrants from India, one of the world's poorest countries, join the ranks of the richest people in the United States? How did such a small minority of just 1% become so disproportionately represented in the highest income occupations ranging from top corporate executives and technology entrepreneurs to doctors, lawyers and investment bankers? Indian-American Professor Devesh Kapur,…

Pakistan's technology exports are continuing their growth trajectory, soaring 44% in the first 9 months (July-March) of the current fiscal year 2020-21 to reach $1.512 billion. March 2021 saw record exports of $3.2 billion with goods worth $2.612 billion and services worth $564 million exported during the month.  …

A global survey conducted by Payoneer, a global payments platform company based in Silicon Valley, shows that Pakistani women freelancers are earning $22 an hour, 10% more than the $20 an hour earned by men. While Pakistani male freelancers earnings are at par with global average, Pakistani female earnings are higher than the global average for freelancers. Digital gig economy is not only…

Women's education, literacy and labor force participation levels remain low in Pakistan but the gender gap is declining in terms of literacy rates and mean years of schooling, according to Pakistan Labor Force Survey 2017-18.  There is about one year gap between men and women in terms of education attained. On average, a Pakistani male born after 1995 will…