Shehbaz Puts Daanish University on Two-Week Clock as Ambitious Education Project Takes Shape

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gave officials a hard deadline on Thursday, finalize every detail of the planned Daanish University, including a construction timeline, within two weeks.

Sharif chaired a review meeting on the project and told attendees the university must deliver international-standard education and professional training to talented students from economically disadvantaged and middle-income families not a scaled-down version of elite education, but the real thing, aimed at students who typically can't access it.

A Different University Model

He pushed board members to build something structurally different from Pakistan's conventional university system, describing Daanish University as a model of excellence rather than another addition to the existing public university roster. The distinction matters, Pakistan already runs numerous public universities that struggle with funding, faculty retention and outdated curricula. Sharif's framing suggests he wants this institution to sidestep those systemic problems rather than inherit them.

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The prime minister also directed the university's outreach programme to actively target children from underprivileged and middle-income households, ensuring they know the institution exists and can actually reach it a signal that access, not just academic quality, ranks as a priority for the project.

Daanish University Goes Global

The Daanish University Board briefed Sharif on faculty recruitment and construction plans during the meeting. Board members said they intend to bring in globally renowned faculty holding degrees from international universities, and revealed that talks with a leading US college to help design the university's academic and teaching system have reached their final stages. Neither the board nor the prime minister's office named the US institution involved.

On the physical campus, the board presented a state-of-the-art design built to international standards, with the bidding process for construction set to begin soon. Officials showed Sharif both the design and construction plan during the session.

Federal Ministers Dr Musadik Masood Malik and Attaullah Tarar attended alongside Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Youth Programme, along with Daanish University Board members and senior government officials.

The two-week deadline puts real pressure on a project that, so far, exists mostly on paper. Pakistan's history with ambitious education initiatives includes several that stalled between announcement and execution funding gaps, bureaucratic delays, or shifting political priorities typically explain the gap. Sharif's tight timeline reads as an attempt to force momentum before the project loses steam, but a two-week planning deadline says nothing about how fast construction itself will move once bidding opens.

The bigger unresolved questions sit outside Thursday's meeting entirely: how much the university will cost, who's funding it, and whether "economically disadvantaged and middle-income families" will actually see reduced or waived tuition once the campus opens. Until those specifics surface, the project remains a policy commitment backed by a deadline not yet a functioning institution with a budget attached.