The Lure of Pakistan’s Fully Funded Scholarships: Bangladeshi Students Fall Victim to Fraud While Pursuing Higher Education

❐ BD Digest Desk

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In August 2025, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar visited Dhaka to boost the stalled relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan. During that visit, he announced an educational cooperation initiative or Knowledge Corridor to strengthen higher education, research, and people-to-people contacts between the two countries. It is being run by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.

Under this, a ‘fully funded’ scholarship was announced for Bangladeshi students. But the offer letters given to the students selected for the Masters after the scholarship application, examination and selection process do not reflect that promise. There have been allegations that other benefits including food, monthly allowance, travel, airfare and other benefits have been omitted while offering only tuition fees and accommodation expenses.

This has led to intense disappointment among the selected students; many have called the incident a fraud. Diplomats also see such incidents as Pakistan’s deception of the students.

Ishaq Dar’s visit was the first visit to Dhaka by a Pakistani foreign minister in nearly 13 years. Earlier, in 2012, then Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Kha visited Dhaka.

The Knowledge Corridor announcement stated that a total of 500 full scholarships would be provided to Bangladeshi students over the next five years. This would include full scholarships for students pursuing Bachelor of Science (four-five years), Master’s (two years), and PhD (four years).

In this regard, the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and several education fairs organized by Pakistan in Dhaka invited applications from Bangladeshi students, stating that the selected students will receive full scholarships under the Knowledge Corridor. Under the full scholarship, students will receive full tuition fees, monthly maintenance allowance, monthly hostel charges, settlement allowance (one time) and return air ticket (one time).

Meanwhile, under the Knowledge Corridor, the first batch of about 74 students gradually reached Pakistan in February and began their studies in top universities. The second phase of the Pakistan Education Expo was inaugurated in Dhaka in May, and more scholarship announcements and applications are ongoing.

But in the second phase of the announcement, when the students of the master’s program went to take admission after completing all the scholarship processes, the students were informed that they would only be offered tuition fee waiver and dormitory waiver. That is, there would be no full financial support for food, monthly allowance, transportation and other necessary expenses. This disappointed the students. Many, even if selected for the scholarship, are not willing to continue their studies knowing that they will not get the full scholarship. The students are calling this incident a fraud.

One of the students, on condition of anonymity, said, “I would like to bring to your attention an important issue on behalf of the Bangladeshi students applying for the fully funded Masters scholarship in Pakistan. Because this is a kind of fraud. Saying one thing and doing another. Fraud with hundreds of students and their future. We apply for this scholarship from Bangladesh and go through a long process of application, examination and various stages of selection.”

From the beginning, it was mentioned as a fully funded scholarship in the notifications and official posts published by the relevant authorities.

But at the last stage of the process, the Masters students have been informed that they will not be given a fully funded scholarship. Instead, only tuition fee waiver and dormitory waiver have been offered. That is, there will be no full financial support for food, monthly allowance, transportation and other necessary expenses. We are extremely disappointed and concerned about this matter.

Because if there was no opportunity to offer full scholarships at the Masters level from the beginning, then this should have been made clear at the beginning of the application process. It is very disappointing for students to be given a different offer at the end after a long examination and selection process.

A student named Ashraful Islam Rumman has alleged irregularities after receiving an offer letter for the Allama Iqbal Scholarship from the Pakistan government.

He said that as announced in the official circular and advertisement of the Pakistan Knowledge Corridor, the scholarship was to be a fully funded program. It included 100 percent tuition fees, accommodation, airfare, monthly stipend and settlement allowance (initial location expenses).

The scholarship benefits in the offer letter I received recently for my Masters studies at PAF-IAST, Haripur have been significantly reduced. The email I received stated that the scholarship would only cover 100% tuition fee waiver and accommodation expenses. But living expenses, transportation, visa fees, medical insurance and all other incidental expenses have been explicitly excluded.

I don’t think this is an isolated incident. It seems that almost all students applying for Masters under this scheme have been given only this partial benefit offer letter instead of the promised fully funded scholarship.

Another student, Abu Musa, said, “I am facing two major problems with my offer letter regarding a ‘fully funded’ Masters scholarship from Pakistan – first, confusion about funding: The offer I received stated that it would cover 100 percent of tuition fees and accommodation costs.”

However, this does not include any kind of monthly living stipend, food expenses, health insurance or airfare. It is absolutely impossible to survive there without a stipend, which makes this ‘fully funded’ claim very misleading. Secondly, university change without my consent: I applied for a specific university and program of my choice, but they sent me to a completely different university that I did not select. This was done unilaterally without any consultation with me.

Another student, on condition of anonymity, said, “I also applied and took the exam. Although they say fully funded scholarship in their circular, now they are offering us tuition fee waiver. No fully funded scholarship in the world can ever be just tuition fee waiver. Either they will accept fully funded, or they will reject it. No arrangement beyond this can be acceptable.”

Apart from this, they have made a lot of drama with the results of the Masters. Although it was supposed to be given in the first week of August, they have sent such mails in the third week. The biggest thing is that they are offering third category universities instead of allocating seats in good universities for the students. My question is, if they are not giving fully funded, then why did they not mention the matter clearly in the circular? Only the time and talent of the students have been wasted and many students are disappointed with these results.

Several emails have been sent to the relevant authorities of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan to inquire about this matter, but no response has been received so far.

When asked about this at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka on September 1, Councilor Shabid Ullah Wazir said, “We are trying to collect information from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, because it is under their jurisdiction.”

When asked about the matter again on September 8, Shabidullah Wazir said, “I have been trying to contact the officials concerned, but have not received any information.”

When asked about this, the concerned Director General of the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka did not receive any response. When asked about this, Foreign Ministry Secretary (Bilateral) Nazrul Islam said that the matter was not within their ‘knowledge’.

Former ambassador Munshi Faiz said, “If Pakistan did such an incident with the Knowledge Corridor, it would be a betrayal. There was no need to lie to the students like that. If it was any other country, this would not have happened.”

Former ambassador Mahfuzur Rahman said, “This is a very marginal issue. Surely a solution can be found. The issue deserves consideration from both logical and humanitarian perspectives.”

Retired Major General and former ambassador Shahidul Haque said, “The Foreign Ministry should look into the matter. There may be a gap somewhere. The matter concerns students, so it needs to be addressed with importance.”