Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja has said that Pakistan’s target of reaching 15 billion dollars in IT exports faces a significant obstacle in the form of a persistent skills gap, with the country lacking enough industry ready talent to meet growing demand within the sector. She made the remarks while speaking at a session titled Taking Pakistan’s IT Industry to the Next Level, jointly organized by the American Business Forum and the Lahore University of Management Sciences over the weekend in Lahore.
During her remarks, the minister disclosed the results of a national baseline test administered to roughly 33,000 students in their seventh and eighth semesters of computer science programmes across the country. According to the figures she shared, only 0.4 percent of these students scored above 80 percent on the assessment, while approximately 4 percent scored above 68 percent when measured across 10 distinct employability competencies. These figures point to a considerable gap between the technical education students are currently receiving and the practical skill levels required by employers within the IT sector, raising questions about how well existing computer science curricula are preparing graduates for the demands of industry roles.
Khawaja framed the challenge directly, stating that the jobs and the broader opportunity within Pakistan’s IT sector already exist, but that the right people with the right skills are not currently available to fill them. This framing positioned the skills shortage not as a demand side problem but rather as a structural gap on the supply side of the talent pipeline, one that she suggested requires deeper changes rather than incremental fixes. She specifically called for structural changes across curricula, teaching methods, and the broader K-12 education system, indicating that addressing the skills gap would require intervention well before students reach university level computer science programmes, extending the scope of necessary reform down to earlier stages of Pakistan’s education system.
Beyond the education and skills discussion, the minister also emphasized the importance of strengthening the broader digital ecosystem that supports the IT sector’s growth, pointing specifically to fiber connectivity, mobile broadband infrastructure, and satellite regulations as areas requiring continued attention and investment. This broader framing suggests that while workforce skills represent one major barrier to achieving the country’s IT export ambitions, infrastructure related factors also continue to play a role in shaping the sector’s overall growth trajectory. The minister’s remarks add to an ongoing conversation among policymakers and industry stakeholders about the multiple interconnected challenges Pakistan faces in scaling its IT exports, with workforce readiness emerging as one of the more immediate and measurable obstacles based on the baseline testing data she presented during the session.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
