ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council says results from the latest National Registration Examination show just 21.17 percent of foreign-trained medical graduates and 7.23 percent of foreign-trained dental graduates passed the nationwide licensing test held Dec. 14. The regulator says the figures are intensifying enforcement against foreign medical degree mills that lure Pakistani students with bargain tuition and big promises but deliver uneven preparation, Dec. 25, 2025.
In its coverage of the results, Dawn reported that 7,076 candidates registered for the NRE Step-I, including 6,993 in medicine and 83 in dentistry. Of the 7,012 who appeared, 1,473 qualified — 1,467 medical and six dental — leaving dentistry with one of the weakest showings across recent sittings.
The state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported that the National University of Medical Sciences in Rawalpindi organized the Step-I exam under PMDC policy and handled paper setting and result compilation. Candidates must pass both Step-I and a forthcoming Step-II clinical examination to receive provisional registration, which is required to begin a house job and move toward full registration.
PMDC targets foreign medical degree mills with stricter licensing rules
PMDC officials frame the exam as a patient-safety filter rather than a punishment. In the statement carried by Business Recorder, the council urged families to choose recognized institutions, warning that unrecognized or low-standard schools can waste “hard-earned financial resources” and cost students “precious time,” language that casts foreign medical degree mills as both a consumer-protection issue and a public health risk.
The enforcement push has also been backed by tighter rules for foreign graduates entering the pipeline. A Sept. 8 notification described in The Express Tribune said hospitals should not allow foreign graduates to begin house jobs, internships or clinical training without PMDC provisional registration. The report also said foreign institutions seeking recognition must apply through a formal process and may face evaluation, including physical inspection where needed, as regulators try to choke off pathways that allow foreign medical degree mills to operate unchecked.
Even as the council tightens oversight, the shift has created uncertainty for some returnees. The Express Tribune reported in October that changes to recognition lists and licensing portals left some graduates unclear about whether they could proceed to a house job or had to sit the NRE. The report also cited a PMDC notice raising the processing fee for inclusion in the council’s recognized list of foreign institutions from $5,000 to $10,000.
A long-running warning sign for foreign medical degree mills
The debate is not new, and the current pass rates fit a longer pattern of scrutiny and student anxiety. In a January 2021 Arab News report, foreign-qualified graduates protested shifting recognition decisions, while regulators defended gray and black lists as necessary to stop “fake medical colleges” from feeding Pakistan’s workforce without adequate standards.
Licensing data published in prior years also pointed to a persistent performance gap. In a December 2021 Dawn report on the then-Pakistan Medical Commission’s National Licensing Examination, foreign graduates recorded a 33.08 percent pass rate in Step 1 compared with 89.64 percent among local graduates. A subsequent Dawn report in January 2022 described licensing exams as a needed “barometer” for basic competency amid concerns about uneven training and rapid expansion in some education markets.
For families weighing overseas options, the takeaway behind the latest NRE numbers is increasingly direct: verify recognition before enrolling, weigh clinical exposure as heavily as tuition, and treat glossy marketing with skepticism. The new pass rates suggest the pipeline from foreign medical degree mills is narrowing, and the licensing bar is rising rather than falling.
