News Desk
A passport can determine where a student is permitted to study, but it should not erase years of academic work overnight.
In Pakistan, a directive requiring Afghan medical and dental students to return home has brought this distinction into sharp focus, exposing the consequences of allowing immigration enforcement and strained bilateral relations to collide with education.
The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) issued instructions in July and September 2026 barring medical and dental colleges from admitting Afghan nationals for the current academic session and requiring previously enrolled students to return to Afghanistan.
The September 1 communication instructed institutions to complete the administrative formalities necessary for their departure.
The directive triggered legal challenges from students who argued that the council had exceeded its authority and disrupted their education without giving them a fair hearing.
The Lahore High Court (LHC) suspended the return orders in September and subsequently extended the suspension. The Sindh High Court also suspended the directive in a separate case involving Afghan students in Karachi.
The dispute has placed the future of students enrolled in recognised Pakistani institutions at the centre of a wider confrontation between Islamabad and Kabul.
The PMDC’s September notification did more than restrict future admissions. It also required Afghan nationals already enrolled in medical and dental programmes to return home, creating uncertainty for students who had spent years working toward professional qualifications.
According to Dawn, the council’s communication instructed medical institutions to complete the necessary administrative formalities, including issuing documents to facilitate students’ departure. The directive referred to prevailing government policy as the basis for the decision.
The timing coincided with Pakistan’s continuing repatriation campaign targeting undocumented foreign nationals, most of whom are Afghan citizens.
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have also deteriorated over security concerns, including Pakistan’s allegations that militant groups operate from Afghan territory.
The Taliban authorities have rejected accusations that Afghanistan is being used to facilitate attacks against Pakistan.
Those disputes have shaped the political environment surrounding Afghan nationals living in Pakistan.
However, the position of a student enrolled in a recognised degree programme is not necessarily the same as that of a person residing in the country without valid immigration documents.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office sought to distinguish between the two categories. At its September 10 briefing, the spokesperson said Afghan students with valid visas and enrolment in recognised degree programmes could remain in Pakistan and complete their education.
Those without valid documentation, or who were not registered at a university, were expected to leave.
The Foreign Office reiterated that position on September 17, stating that students holding valid visas and registered for valid courses would be allowed to finish their studies.
That clarification, however, left the PMDC directive and the experiences of students challenging it at the centre of a dispute over how the government’s stated policy was being implemented.
Thirteen Afghan medical students, including seven women and six men, approached the Lahore High Court on September 10, challenging the PMDC’s instructions.
They were enrolled at institutions including King Edward Medical University, Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Medical and Dental College, and the Services Institute of Medical Sciences.
The petitioners argued that the PMDC and the colleges lacked the legal authority to remove them from their programmes through a blanket directive. They also contended that the decision had violated their rights to education, dignity and due process.
On September 11, Justice Khalid Ishaq suspended the operation of the PMDC’s July 31 and September 1 directives insofar as they affected the petitioners. The court directed that the students be allowed to continue their studies, sit examinations and return to their hostels without adverse action.
The proceedings did not conclude there. On September 18, the court extended the suspension after lawyers representing the PMDC and a university sought additional time to submit their replies.
The matter remained pending in the latest available reporting, with the court also raising questions about the maintainability of the petitions in light of Pakistan’s foreign policy position.
A separate case reached the Sindh High Court. On September 14, the court suspended the PMDC’s return orders until the next hearing after three Afghan students challenged the council’s jurisdiction.
The litigation demonstrated that the dispute extended beyond Punjab and affected students studying in different parts of Pakistan.
The judicial interventions have temporarily protected the position of the students covered by the orders. They have not, however, settled the broader questions concerning the scope of the PMDC’s authority or the treatment of Afghan students outside the petitions.
For students already deep into medical training, an abrupt interruption can carry consequences extending well beyond a missed semester.
Medical degrees require years of structured study, examinations and clinical training.
Students who have completed several years of a programme cannot necessarily transfer their credits or resume their studies in another country without administrative and academic obstacles. An interruption may also affect scholarships, accommodation, professional registration and future employment.
The uncertainty has been particularly acute for Afghan women. Dawn reported on September 14 that around 1,000 Afghan students, including approximately 350 women, were studying in medical and dental colleges in Pakistan.
The figures were cited by students and should be understood as reported estimates rather than a verified national enrolment census.
Some of these students had already experienced the collapse of their educational prospects at home.
Nilofar Nikzad, one of the petitioners in Lahore, said she had completed two years of medical studies in Afghanistan before Taliban restrictions forced her to abandon her education. She subsequently pursued medical training in Pakistan.
For students in similar circumstances, a return order raises a question more consequential than the administrative inconvenience of changing institutions: whether the education they have already secured can continue at all.
The implications of repatriation are especially severe because Afghanistan’s restrictions on female education have deepened since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
Girls have been excluded from secondary education, while women have been barred from universities since December 2022. Restrictions on women’s medical education were tightened further in December 2024, closing another route through which women had been able to pursue professional training.
UNESCO reported in August 2026 that an estimated 2.4 million girls had been excluded from secondary education since 2021. Afghanistan remains the only country where girls and women are formally prohibited from education beyond the primary level.
The restrictions have implications beyond individual students. Afghanistan needs trained medical personnel, including women who can provide healthcare to female patients in a society where gender restrictions can limit access to services delivered by men.
UN reporting has warned that the suspension of women’s medical education is reducing the future supply of female health professionals and weakening healthcare delivery.
Sending a female medical student back to Afghanistan can mean returning her to a system in which the path to completing her qualification is severely restricted or unavailable. The precise consequences depend on her circumstances, but the wider educational barriers are well documented.
Pakistan’s government has framed the student issue within its broader immigration and security policies. Islamabad has argued that foreign nationals must comply with visa requirements and that those without valid authorisation cannot remain indefinitely.
The state has authority to regulate entry, residence and immigration status. Yet the Afghan student controversy has exposed the difficulty of applying general policy directions to people whose circumstances differ substantially.
A student with a valid visa, formal enrolment and years of completed coursework is in a different position from an undocumented resident or an individual whose study authorisation has expired.
The Foreign Office’s own public statements have recognised distinctions based on valid visas and registration, even as the PMDC directive prompted students to seek judicial protection.
The wider relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan remains burdened by security disputes, militant violence and the repatriation campaign. But Afghan students enrolled in Pakistani institutions are not themselves the governments responsible for those disputes.
The controversy has also placed medical colleges in a difficult position, caught between instructions from their professional regulator, immigration requirements and court orders protecting particular students.
The PMDC directive has exposed a conflict between immigration enforcement and the continuity of education.
The legal proceedings have raised questions about the council’s authority, the status of students already enrolled and the extent to which a broad policy decision can affect individual academic careers.
The Foreign Office’s assurances that students with valid visas and recognised enrolment may complete their courses have not erased the uncertainty created by the council’s instructions.
The court cases themselves demonstrate that students felt compelled to challenge the decision to protect their academic futures.
For Afghan women, the stakes are higher because the educational system to which they may be returned has sharply restricted access to secondary, university and medical education.
For all affected students, years of study, financial commitments and professional ambitions have been placed under a cloud of uncertainty.
Pakistan’s immigration policy is operating within an increasingly tense relationship with Kabul. The consequences of that tension, however, are being felt by students whose immediate concern is not diplomacy or border security, but whether they can complete their degrees.
The dispute is about more than the admission rules of medical colleges. It concerns the extent to which education can be disrupted by a student’s nationality at a time when the prospect of continuing that education at home may be severely limited.
For those caught between the two countries, the uncertainty has already become part of their education.
