The National Academy of Higher Education, operating under the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, has successfully concluded a three-day training programme titled “Applied Artificial Intelligence for University Administration,” held from October 7 to 9, 2026, in what the commission has described as the first cohort of a nationwide initiative to embed practical artificial intelligence competencies within Pakistan’s university management structures. The programme brought together 30 administrative professionals drawn from 14 universities across the country, providing them with structured, hands-on exposure to how artificial intelligence tools can be applied to improve administrative efficiency, digital governance, decision-making processes, and service delivery within higher education institutions.
The training was conducted by artificial intelligence expert Dr. Aneel Salman, whose sessions focused on practical applications rather than theoretical concepts, reflecting the programme’s stated objective of equipping administrative professionals with skills they can directly deploy within their institutional environments rather than simply building awareness of artificial intelligence as a broad technology category. Higher Education Commission Executive Director Prof. Dr. Zia ul Haq joined the closing ceremony virtually and used the occasion to address the importance of responsible artificial intelligence adoption, institutional accountability, and the careful integration of emerging technologies in ways that strengthen rather than displace the human judgment that underpins effective university governance. Prof. Dr. Khalid Hafeez, Vice Chancellor of Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, attended the closing ceremony as Chief Guest and echoed this perspective, highlighting the continued importance of human wisdom in ensuring that artificial intelligence tools are applied with discernment and contextual understanding.
Dr. Noor Amna Malik, Managing Director of the National Academy of Higher Education, encouraged participants to function as ambassadors for the programme within their respective institutions, sharing the knowledge and frameworks they had developed during training with colleagues who were not part of this first cohort. The ambassador framing reflects a deliberate strategy for multiplying the programme’s reach beyond the 30 direct participants, creating internal advocates within each of the 14 participating universities who can drive further adoption and model responsible artificial intelligence use in their daily administrative work. The first cohort’s completion also formally marks the beginning of a scaled rollout, with the National Academy of Higher Education confirming that the programme will be extended through Higher Education Commission Regional Centres in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta, as well as through regional clusters across Pakistan.
The initiative arrives at a moment when universities across Pakistan are increasingly being called upon to operate with greater efficiency and transparency, adopt digital governance practices, and prepare graduates for a labour market being reshaped by artificial intelligence, making it particularly relevant that the administrative and management leadership of these institutions develop their own working literacy in the same technologies. By starting with administrative professionals rather than academic faculty, the National Academy of Higher Education has chosen to address a layer of the university ecosystem that is often overlooked in technology capacity-building programmes but whose effectiveness in deploying digital tools has a direct bearing on the quality of services that students, faculty, and external stakeholders receive from higher education institutions on a daily basis.
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