By Mirza Abdul Aleem Baig
Mirza Abdul Aleem Baig is President of Strategic Science Advisory Council (SSAC) – Pakistan. He is an independent observer of global dynamics, with a deep interest in the intricate working of techno-geopolitics, exploring how science & technology, international relations, foreign policy, and strategic alliances shape the emerging world order.
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Mirza_AA_Baig
Pakistan today stands at a decisive crossroads. The global economy is shifting toward knowledge-intensive technologies (techno-economy) where nations no longer compete primarily on raw resources or low-cost labor but on innovation ecosystems, and sovereign mastery of critical systems.
For Pakistan to survive and thrive in the 21st century, its engineering education must be fundamentally re-engineered.
For decades, our engineering syllabi have remained static – anchored to outdated theory, rote memorization, and examinations that test memory more than skill. The majority of graduates often leave universities with degrees but without the competencies to design a semiconductor, program a robotics stack, or secure a digital network.
In an era where artificial intelligence, renewable energy, secure communication, and advanced manufacturing define power hierarchies, this gap is not merely academic – it is existential. If we continue producing engineers detached from real-world problem solving, Pakistan will sink deeper and deeper into technological dependency.
The urgency of reform is underscored by recent data. Surveys indicate that nearly one in four engineering graduates is unemployed and the unemployment rate doubled from 11 percent to 23.5 percent in 2022-2025, about 70 percent of female engineers are either unemployed or out of labor force, a rate far higher than the national average.
This reflects a stark mismatch between what universities teach and what the market demands. At the same time, Pakistan is bleeding talent. Tens of thousands of professionals, including thousands of engineers, left the country in 2023–24, part of a record wave of skilled emigration that has stripped Pakistan of the very people needed to seed new industries and mentor the next generation.
Enrollment in engineering programs has also dropped sharply in some provinces, by as much as 76 percent over the past decade, while higher education access nationwide remains limited to only about one in eight young adults. These trends paint a worrying picture: fewer students entering engineering, rising unemployment among those who do graduate, and a worsening brain drain among those with valuable skills.
On top of this, structural weaknesses persist. Chronic underfunding leaves laboratories outdated and equipment under-maintained. Faculty often lack exposure to modern toolchains and industry practices. Regulatory bodies such as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) are attempting reforms, but accreditation remains heavily weighted toward rote exams rather than innovation outcomes.
This is why Pakistan must embrace a techno-nationalist approach; a deliberate strategy that prioritizes technological sovereignty, aligns curricula with national missions, and orients graduates toward solving Pakistan’s own strategic challenges. This is not isolationism; rather, it is equipping engineers to contribute to global standards and open-source ecosystems while ensuring that Pakistan can independently design, build, and maintain its critical technologies from chips and communication systems to renewable grids and medical devices.
A redesigned syllabus should revolve around mission-driven tracks; semiconductors and embedded systems, AI and robotics, secure digital infrastructure, climate and energy technologies, health tech, etc. Each of these fields addresses both global opportunities and Pakistan’s local needs. Imagine graduates designing open RISC-V processors for secure ID systems, developing Urdu-enabled OCR pipelines for digitization, or building low-cost ventilators for hospitals. Such alignment ensures education is not abstract but tied directly to national survival and growth.
Reform must also change how we teach and assess. Industry co-ops should be mandatory, with students spending extended periods embedded in real firms. Challenge-based learning should replace textbook rehearsals, with students solving problems drawn directly from national missions such as flood resilience, smart agriculture, or secure power grids. Assessment should shift from high-stakes written exams to prototypes and deployments.
Equally important is faculty capacity. Teachers must be retrained through “teach-the-teachers” academies, incentivized to learn open-source toolchains, and offered sabbaticals in industry or national R&D labs. Promotion criteria should reward labs maintained, partnerships built, and prototypes delivered, not just lecture hours or years served.
The state, too, must play its part. The government should act as the “buyer of first resort” for promising student prototypes, fast-tracking them into pilot deployments. Shared regional “sovereignty labs” can provide access to expensive equipment like FPGAs, fabrication partnerships, and cyber ranges. Policies must also address brain drain by career pathways in R&D, and recognition for graduates who remain and build at home.
Countries that fail to assert technological sovereignty will remain at the mercy of those that do. For Pakistan, re-engineering the engineering syllabus with a techno-nationalist approach is not just an educational reform – it is a survival strategy, a nation-building imperative, and a moral obligation to future generations.
To cut a long story short, with rising graduate unemployment, falling enrollment, and record brain drain, the evidence is all around us; the current system is broken and out-of-date. But with courage, coherence, and urgency, we can transform our engineering classrooms into the engine rooms of Pakistan’s technological future.
