Should female students be allowed a 50% quota in admissions in educational institutes? This question was taken up for discussion by the Punjab Assembly and some members objected to the allocation of seats on the basis of gender.

In response to questions about the distribution of seats in medical colleges, Health Minister Nadeem Kamran told the assembly that before 1991, male and female students enjoyed equal gender-based quota (50% each) for admission in MBBS. In 1991, the Supreme Court put an end to this policy and instead declared the open-merit criterion for all MBBS admissions. Currently, the number of female students, while following the open-merit system, exceeds that of male students (1166 females against 701 males) in medical colleges.

MPA Syed Hasan Mutiza, who started the debate about female seats, expressed his view that women were already enjoying a special status in Pakistan – having separate queues at banks and in post offices. An opposing view came from MPA Sajid Mir who said that women were ignored in every sphere of life and needed protection of their rights.

Two interesting, and conflicting, viewpoints were shared by other members. MPA Skeikh Allauddin was of the opinion that women deserved a lower quota than what they were currently getting in education because more than 50% of them did not serve in the respective fields of their academic degrees. This, according to him, has resulted in wastage of billions of rupees spent by the government on their education. Countering him came MPA Amna Ulfat’s argument that many male students also did not serve in their respective fields, like law and engineering, but went for Central Superior Services (CSS).Thus, women deserve a right to an equal number of seats in every professional sector.

In the context of women serving in their respective academic fields, an MPA suggested that female students getting professional degrees should be asked to enter a bond obliging them to serve in their respective fields for at least five years. The health minister supported the suggestion and told that it would be given consideration. However, it is not clear whether it will receive general support among women in education since the obligation to serve under a bond may bring them a number of problems. Besides, the questions question remains ‘why male students should be acquitted of such an obligation?’