On the event of Pakistan’s Independence Day, the Oxford Pakistan Programme (OPP) has introduced its 2026 graduate scholarship awards, enabling a brand new cohort of excellent Pakistani students to pursue graduate examine on the College of Oxford.
This 12 months’s cohort, consisting of 12 students, is notable for its geographic and institutional range.
Students come from communities stretching from Swat, Nowshera and Azad Kashmir to Khangarh, Khairpur, Larkana, Shaheed Benazirabad and Karachi.
Reflecting OPP’s dedication to discovering expertise wherever it exists, the students are drawn not solely from main non-public sector establishments, akin to LUMS and IBA, but additionally from public sector universities together with Quaid-i-Azam College, the College of Peshawar, NED College, Liaquat College of Medical and Well being Sciences, COMSATS College, and the Worldwide Islamic College Islamabad.
This 12 months’s students will examine topics starting from legislation, economics and public coverage to engineering, drugs, most cancers science and the humanities.
A specific spotlight this 12 months is the primary cohort of 4 students supported by means of the Bhutto Graduate Scholarships, established in partnership with the Authorities of Sindh.
Introduced in Oxford by Pakistan Peoples Occasion (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, the initiative is designed to develop entry to Oxford for gifted college students from traditionally under-represented areas.
Amarta Chandio graduated from LUMHS with the very best GPA in her cohort and 4 gold medals, whereas Faiza Rehman studied Economics at IBA Karachi on a full scholarship; each have labored on maternal well being in rural Sindh.
Mir Musawwar Ali, a LUMS graduate, positioned second in Pakistan’s Central Superior Companies examination, and Junaid Memon studied engineering at NED College earlier than securing admission to Oxford. The programme has additionally awarded the Benazir Bhutto Graduate Scholarship, supported by the Authorities of Balochistan, to Maira Mehmood from Sohbatpur.
The OPP additionally introduced its inaugural Interloop Scholar, Saadia Khan, who will pursue graduate examine in Most cancers Science at Oxford, and the primary scholar supported by means of its new landmark partnership with the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Belief, Sara Saleh from Swat.
The OPP contribution in the direction of Sara’s scholarship is supported by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, one among OPP’s foundational donors and a longstanding advocate for women’ schooling.
Ali Hassan from Khangarh, South Punjab, turns into the most recent Tareen Scholar, whereas Manal Ahmed (Karachi), Hamza Khan (Nowshera, KP)) and Abdul Rehman Noor (Poonch, Azad Kashmir) full this 12 months’s cohort.A marketing campaign for Pakistan at Oxford
The OPP’s co-founders mentioned the programme’s progress is a testomony to the solidarity of a group keen to put money into the nation’s younger folks. The programme is supported by a rising group of philanthropists, entrepreneurs and institutional companions, together with the Malala Fund, Interloop Group, the Sheikh Household Basis, Ali Tareen, the Hamid Ismail Basis, and quite a few Pakistani enterprise leaders in Pakistan and overseas.
Musadaq Zulqarnain, Chairman of the Interloop Group, described OPP as a “charity of hope” able to lighting many candles at a time when Pakistan’s younger inhabitants is hungry for alternative.
Mohammed Khaishgi, a former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, praised OPP’s “big-tent strategy”, its “fixed can-do perspective” and a perception in Pakistan that he described as “infectious”.
Reflecting on the announcement, the OPP workforce mentioned the programme represented way over a scholarship scheme. They mentioned: “OPP is finally an funding in Pakistan’s human potential. At a second when many younger Pakistanis are trying to find causes to consider sooner or later, these students remind us that extraordinary expertise exists in each province, each group and each form of college. Our mission is to make sure that a teenager’s birthplace, monetary circumstances or establishment doesn’t decide the boundaries of their ambition.”
The workforce added that pronouncing the scholarships on Pakistan’s Independence Day was supposed to ship a message of confidence and hope. “There could be few extra highly effective expressions of perception in Pakistan’s future than investing in its younger folks and enabling them to compete with the easiest on the planet.”
