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Despite Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s earlier announcement of a nationwide 15% reserved quota for children of overseas Pakistanis, the Punjab government has not revised its admission policy to reflect the change, keeping the current share below 2% across public medical and dental colleges.
In April, the prime minister publicly announced that expatriate families would benefit from an expanded quota that could allow over 3,000 students to pursue medical education in Pakistan. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council later claimed it had implemented the directive and notified all stakeholders. However, Punjab’s 2025–26 policy, issued in October, did not incorporate the quota increase, creating concern among thousands of overseas families.
Punjab’s Current Quota and New Requirements
Punjab presently reserves only 66 seats across 20 government medical and dental institutions less than 2% of the total 3,379 seats. Instead of raising the exemption, the province has also abolished free education for expatriates’ children. Under the updated policy, overseas applicants must pay an annual fee of US$10,000 even for existing limited seats.
A senior official said the revised rules not only ignored the 15% quota but removed previous fee relaxations. Some insiders suggest the province is also weighing the option of completely ending quota-based admissions in the future.
University of Health Sciences officials argue that the PM’s 15% quota applies only to private colleges, where PMDC has already implemented the rule. But high fees around Rs2.5 million annually have discouraged applicants, leaving many private-sector seats vacant and later converted to open merit.
Overseas Pakistanis dispute this interpretation, saying the PMDC’s May 23 notification made no distinction between public and private institutions. One expatriate said the directive clearly grants eligible students access to 15% foreign seats in both sectors, urging Punjab to revise its policy accordingly.
Officials say the provincial government is reluctant due to mounting pressure on public medical colleges, which are already struggling to maintain academic and training standards.
