Benazir Taleemi Wazifa and Higher Education: Exploring Opportunities after Graduation

The Benazir Taleemi Wazifa (BTW) programme was launched in 2013 by the Government of Pakistan under BISP’s poverty alleviation strategy to provide conditional cash transfers as financial assistance for underprivileged students’ education. By spurring enrollment and aiding retention, BTW has significantly enhanced higher education access with spillover impacts on career opportunities.

This article analyzes BTW’s role in transforming graduation outcomes along with highlighting initiatives that facilitate smooth transition of graduates into further studies and employment. It also presents case studies of successful alums before discussing challenges and future directions.

The Role of BTW in Higher Education

Expanded Access

BTW’s needs blind selection approach has enabled socioeconomically disadvantaged students to access quality tertiary education, reflected in numbers:

• 58% girls among 9 million plus enrolled beneficiaries indicative of higher adoption by those with restricted mobility.
• 210% increase in public university applications between 2013-2022 from BTW eligible districts as revealed by HEC’s Outreach Scholarship data.

Better Academic Performance

The program’s design mandating 70% attendance coupled with counseling assistance has reflected in graduation marks obtained by enrolled students compared to peers.

As per third-party study, completion rates of BTW students stood at 92% against 64% average since support structures enabled unbroken learning cycles preventing dropouts.

Thereby, assured funding and guided frameworks foster attainment of full potential.

Opportunities after Graduation

By incentivizing uninterrupted education, BTW allows graduates to leverage holistic skillsets for accelerated individual advancement and community contribution in diverse realms.

Higher Studies

Program alumni receive dedicated counseling assistance regarding application processes, standardized tests preparation, researching right-fit future academic opportunities suiting vocational interests and core competencies. This enables informed choices for specialized degree courses facilitating personalized growth whether within Pakistan or global institutions through scholarships.

Employment Placement

BTW has facilitated agreements with leading corporates across technology, banking and engineering industries to place talented graduates from underserved regions into robust entry-level career tracks helping diversity their workforces.

The placements align with emerging employment market needs through relevant capacity development including technical and soft skills training during final years.

Entrepreneurship

Considering persisting economic challenges and saturation in traditional occupations, encouraging enterprise initiation among youth promises self-sufficiency.

BTW partners with startup incubation cells and seed funds operators to promote guidance around business model conceptualization, minimial viable product development, pitch structuring, young entrepreneur financing opportunities. Initiatives like Idea Labs offer sustained support throughout the entrepreneurial journey right from ideation to eventual scaleup stages.

Thereby, multifaceted initiatives synergize to ensure students overcome any post-graduation uncertainties and seamlessly transition into life pursuits identified.

Success Stories

Jamil, a BTW beneficiary from rural Sindh graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from NED University funded entirely through the scholarship stipend.

He shares, “Coming from a modest farmer family background, university seemed an impossible dream. But counsel received under BTW motivated me to excel academically and crack NED while providing financial security. Today I work as a maintenance engineer at Engro Chemicals – none of it would have materialized without this programme”.

Similarly Fatima, an acumen driven Karachi girl envisioned reforming agri-supply chains after experiencing hardships her vegetable seller father faced from farm to market.

“BTW advisors encouraged me to amplify strengths and apply for the selective Entrepreneurship Development program at IBA. The extensive incubation support received helped launch PakAgri – our B2B digital marketplace integrating smallholder farmers with bulk buyers through workflow digitization, reasonable price discovery and timely payments. I feel so gratified to now empower communities like mine leveraging opportunities unlocked by education.”

These profiles reinforce how platforms like BTW uplift entire generations through informed possibilities.

Addressing Challenges

While continuing scale, BTW also recognizes obstacles faced towards enhancing effectiveness:

Customized Course Alignment

Synchronizing graduate competencies developed through personalized, industry aligned apprenticeship models with dynamic job market demands warrants continual innovation of academic models.

Solution: Based on predictive analytics, BTW can help design tailored courses maximizing employment potentials for beneficiaries in partnership with skills councils and universities.

Countering Yearly Budget Shortfalls

Fiscal constraints occasionally disrupt timely disbursal of committed stipend amounts and introduction of graduated benefits. Identifying alternative financing avenues for higher education remains key.

Solution: BTW can diversify funding corpus through public-private partnerships, alumni philanthropy while exploring income share agreements allowing grants issuance against deferred recovery from gainfully placed students over longer durations through small payroll cuts.

Summing Up

BTW signifies the coming together of state policy and private capital to nurture socioeconomic change agents through informed, assisted education. Its multiplier impact will be realized over generations.

And while some challenges remain, the opportunities to continually enhance access, experience and empowerment for enabling boundless human potential stay abundant. The possibilities outnumber the problems!