Karachi: Pakistan is spending heavily on educating girls only to lose most of them to social pressure after graduation, Federal Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said on Saturday, urging families to stop forcing qualified women out of professional careers, particularly in health care.
Speaking at the opening of an international medical education conference at Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry, Siddiqui said girls were outperforming boys academically, yet nearly 80 percent were restricted to domestic roles once their education was completed, undermining both national investment and the country’s health workforce.
He said the issue was not lack of talent but deeply rooted social attitudes. Families, he added, should recognise that educating daughters was meant to prepare them for meaningful participation in society, not to quietly sideline them after degrees were earned. His remarks drew strong response from students and faculty attending the event.
The minister also rejected the idea that students going abroad for education amounted to a brain drain. Instead, he described it as skill building that ultimately benefited Pakistan, saying many young people returned with training and experience that strengthened local institutions. Pakistan’s youth, he said, were its greatest asset, not a burden.
Reflecting on politics, Siddiqui said he did not belong to Pakistan’s traditional ruling elite and claimed to have entered parliament for the fifth time without spending money on elections, calling it a rare example in modern politics.
The conference was attended by President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan Khalid Masood Gondal, Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Health Amir Waliuddin Chishti, along with senators, senior medical education experts, college administrators and a large number of medical students.
Prof Gondal said the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan had introduced major reforms to improve standards of postgraduate medical education, faculty development and transparency in examinations. These measures, he said, had helped institutions like Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry move closer to international benchmarks.
Siddiqui said the federal government would continue to back the education and health sectors through technology driven reforms and policies focused on public service, stressing that real progress would remain limited unless society allowed educated women to stay in the professions they were trained for.