Dr Zafar Khan Safdar
Pakistan’s education crisis is usually measured in enrolment, literacy and government expenditure. Its deeper consequences are visible in the choices educated young people make when academic achievement fails to deliver the opportunities they were promised. Some leave the country in search of better prospects. Others remain trapped in underemployment and diminishing expectations. Between these outcomes lies a growing market for the promise of a better future, including overseas education consultants whose services can become a source of devastating financial exploitation.
The case of Laiba Ijaz, a gold medallist from International Islamic University Islamabad, has brought this contradiction into painful focus. According to media reports, her family sacrificed land and jewellery to finance an overseas education opportunity after a consultant allegedly promised admission and a scholarship at Harvard University. The family reportedly lost approximately Rs9.3 million. Laiba died in Islamabad on October 9, 2026, and police subsequently arrested a suspect in connection with the alleged fraud. The investigation must establish the facts and individual responsibility. Yet the case raises a question that extends beyond one family or one alleged offender. Why must families risk so much to pursue opportunities that academic merit should help them access, and why are they so poorly protected when they do?
For millions of Pakistani households, education represents the hope that the next generation will live more securely than the previous one. Parents save, borrow and sacrifice other needs to pay for schooling, university fees and professional qualifications. A degree is therefore more than a certificate. It embodies years of investment and the expectation of a fairer future. When that promise fails, the consequences extend beyond the graduate to the entire family that financed the journey.
The economic returns to education have become increasingly uncertain. Pakistan’s Labour Force Survey 2024-25 puts national unemployment at 7.1 per cent, while youth unemployment reaches 15.4% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 12.9% in Punjab. These figures tell only part of the story. They do not fully capture graduates working below their qualifications, young people who have stopped seeking work or families whose substantial investment in education produces little improvement in their circumstances.
Pakistan’s universities, labour market and industrial sector remain poorly connected. Universities need stronger research capacity and closer engagement with a changing economy, while industries need the ability and incentive to employ skilled graduates productively. Without investment in higher education and research, alongside an economy capable of creating skilled employment, qualifications alone cannot guarantee economic mobility.
Financial condition of public universities makes this challenge harder. For 2025-26 fiscal year, the federal government allocated approximately Rs66.4 billion in recurring funding for higher education and Rs39.4 billion for development projects under the Higher Education Commission. In 2026-27 budget, the recurring grant remained unchanged, although the development allocation increased to Rs46 billion. The HEC had sought a recurring grant of at least Rs100 billion for the new fiscal year.
For universities, these figures translate into difficult choices about laboratories, research, faculty retention and academic standards. Institutions struggling to meet basic operating costs have less room to invest in the facilities and opportunities students need to compete internationally. Those who can afford it increasingly look abroad, while those who cannot remain dependent on institutions under mounting financial pressure. The result is a widening divide between families able to purchase access to international opportunities and those whose ambitions are constrained by their means.
This gap also creates opportunities for those who exploit educational aspiration. Many overseas education consultants provide legitimate services, helping students navigate applications, documentation and admissions. But families may struggle to distinguish reputable advisers from operators who promise guaranteed admissions, scholarships or visas. In Laiba’s case, the reported loss was not simply a financial transaction gone wrong. It represented family assets sacrificed in the belief that they would secure a better future.
Pakistan must move beyond investigating fraud after families have lost their savings. The Federal Investigation Agency and police have an essential role in investigating alleged offences and pursuing those responsible, but enforcement after the event is not enough. The country needs a transparent and enforceable framework for overseas education consultants. Registration, clear fee disclosures, written agreements, verifiable receipts and accessible complaint mechanisms should be basic requirements. Claims about admissions, scholarships and institutional affiliations must be independently verifiable. Serious violations should attract proportionate penalties, with effective safeguards to help prevent dishonest operators from collecting money and disappearing.
International practice offers useful lessons. Australia’s regulatory framework requires education providers to maintain written agreements with agents who formally represent them and to monitor their recruitment activities. Pakistan should develop comparable accountability while enabling students to apply directly through official university websites and verify admissions, scholarships and fees independently. The objective is not to discourage legitimate consultants or international study. It is to ensure that students can pursue overseas opportunities without placing their families’ savings at the mercy of unverifiable promises.
Regulation cannot resolve the deeper crisis on its own. Pakistan must strengthen its public universities, improve the relevance of degrees, expand research opportunities and build stronger links between education and productive industries. Graduate recruitment must reward merit, and the economy must create more opportunities for skilled young people. International study can enrich knowledge, build professional networks and strengthen research. It should be a choice made in pursuit of opportunity, not an escape forced by the absence of it at home.
Laiba’s gold medal should have marked the beginning of opportunity, not a journey in which her family’s hopes became vulnerable to alleged exploitation. Pakistan cannot guarantee every graduate a place at a foreign university or a secure job. It can, however, build universities worthy of public trust, an economy that rewards merit and safeguards that protect families when they seek opportunities beyond the country’s borders. A degree should be a bridge to a better life, not a promise so fragile that a family must gamble its future to believe in it.
The writer is Ph.D in Political Science and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad. His area of specialization is political development and social change. He can be reached at [email protected] and on X @zafarkhansafdar.
