Pakistan medical regulator orders Afghan students to leave universities

September 11, 2026 at 12:32 PM2 min

This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.

Pakistan's medical regulator ordered universities to expel Afghan students on September 1. More than 200 Afghan nationals enrolled in Pakistani medical and dental colleges are affected. Students received eviction notices with as little as 24 hours to leave hostels.

Key Facts

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) ordered universities on September 1 to send enrolled Afghan students home and barred new admissions, transfers, or migrations of Afghan nationals for the current academic year.
More than 200 Afghan students are currently enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental colleges, according to the PMDC, and most of them have been hit by the directive.
The PMDC stated that only 22 Afghan students are presently registered with the regulator, including 14 who have graduated and eight who are about to graduate.
Many affected students came through the Allama Iqbal Scholarship, a programme run by Pakistan's Higher Education Commission (HEC) with the Pakistani embassy in Kabul for top-scoring Afghan students.
Institutions across Pakistan began issuing eviction notices within days of the PMDC directive, in some cases giving students as little as 24 hours to clear their hostel rooms.

PMDC Directive

On September 1, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) ordered universities and colleges to send enrolled Afghan students home. The regulator also barred any new admissions, transfers, or migrations of Afghan nationals for the current academic year. In a statement, the PMDC justified its directive by arguing that all foreign students enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental institutions needed to be registered with the regulator. It said only 22 Afghan students are presently registered with the PMDC, including 14 who have graduated and eight who are about to graduate.

Student Impact

More than 200 Afghan students are currently enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental colleges, according to the PMDC, and most of them have been hit by the directive. Alishba, a medical student in Lahore, was on a maternity ward night shift when her phone began filling with messages on September 8 about the expulsion. She was one of nearly two dozen Afghan nationals named on her college's expulsion list, which circulated on Facebook within hours. All those named were given less than three days to prepare to leave the only country where, as a woman, she has been able to study medicine at all. Institutions across different parts of the country began issuing eviction notices within days of the PMDC directive, in some cases giving students as little as 24 hours to clear their hostel rooms.

Scholarship Background

Many of the affected students came through the Allama Iqbal Scholarship, a programme run by Pakistan's Higher Education Commission (HEC) with the Pakistani embassy in Kabul for top-scoring Afghan students. The students say neither any Pakistani government agency nor their colleges told them at the time that they also needed to register with the PMDC. Alishba said she came to Pakistan in 2021 and that the scholarship was processed entirely through HEC and the embassy.