As the fifth most populous country in the world and the second largest economy in South Asia after India, Pakistan is a major source of international students. Strong recent growth has made the country one of the UK’s leading sources of international students.
Pakistan has a youthful population and growth in the student-age population is expected to continue, with the number of young people aged 15-29 projected to reach 78 million by the end of the decade. While the economy in Pakistan is currently under severe stress and has recently seen its weakest pace of annual economic growth in decades (aside from the pandemic), medium term prospects are brighter, with growth expected to return to the 5-6 per cent per year range by the mid-2020s.
Pakistan’s domestic education system faces a number of issues. According to UNICEF the country has the world’s second highest number of out of school children, while gender disparity is another challenge as boys heavily outnumber girls at every stage of education. In addition, under-qualified teaching staff, poor infrastructure and low public expenditure on education raises capacity issues.
These challenges contribute to making Pakistan the third largest outbound international student market in South Asia, after India and Nepal, and the 18th largest in the world. According to the UNESCO estimates, almost 65,000 students from Pakistan travelled abroad to study at the higher education level in 2020. Since 2010, the volume of outbound students has increased consistently, growing by an average of around 5 per cent per year.
The UK’s recruitment of Pakistani international students has surged in recent years, with the number of Pakistani students in the UK increasing by over 60 per cent in the 2020/21 academic year despite the pandemic, followed by an even stronger surge of 75 per cent in the 2021/22 academic year. Reasons for this growth include a very positive reaction to the UK’s new Graduate Route visas, alongside strict Covid policies in China and Australia which have historically been popular study destinations for Pakistani international students. Most of the growth in UK student numbers from Pakistan has come at the postgraduate level.
Pakistan currently ranks as one of the UK’s top 20 host countries for transnational education and distance learning with 9,770 students in 2021/22, similar in size to other South Asian countries including India (12,075) and Nepal (10,700).
This Market Intelligence Brief represents a window onto Pakistan’s education system and student population, as well as the economic and demographic factors, and policy priorities and developments that shape the country’s international education outlook. The report examines various aspects related to the internationalisation of the Pakistan education system – including student mobility, transnational education programmes and research collaboration – and also highlights national level education projects and partnerships between the UK and Pakistan.