When Ayesha graduated with a BS in Public Administration from a government university in Islamabad, she had a good degree, decent grades, and absolutely no idea how to get her first job. She applied to 40 positions in the first two months. Heard back from six. Interviewed at two. Got nothing. Every job description said … Read more
Rizwan is from Dera Ghazi Khan — a city that gets mentioned in policy documents about “underserved regions” and rarely appears in articles about career development. After failing his first attempt at FA exams, he took a year off. Not a gap year in the Western sense — a year of helping his father in … Read more
My younger brother Asad spent two years after intermediate doing nothing in particular. Not because he was lazy. He passed FSc with decent marks. But the family couldn’t afford a four-year degree, and private IT bootcamps were charging Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 150,000 for courses he’d seen advertised online. That gap — between “I want … Read more
A student named Samuel from Faisalabad’s Christian community finished his FSc with 78% marks and got admission to a BS Chemistry program at a government university. His family was elated. His church community congratulated him. He was the first in his extended family to get into a university science program. Then came the fee calculation. … Read more
Zainab applied for the HEC Need-Based Scholarship twice and got rejected both times. Not because she wasn’t eligible. Not because her family’s income was above the threshold. She was rejected both times because of how she presented her case — specifically, what documentation she submitted and how she described her household’s financial situation. The third … Read more
Three years ago, a student I know named Omer got into one of Pakistan’s top engineering universities on merit. His family celebrated. His mother cried. His younger siblings thought he was going to change everything for the family. Then the fee challan arrived. Rs. 42,000 per semester. Times 8 semesters. That’s Rs. 336,000 in tuition … Read more