Parliamentary Secretary Rabia Naseem Farooqi told the National Assembly on Thursday that every one of Pakistan's 282 universities provides a mandatory two-month internship in the sixth semester.
She responded to a Calling Attention Notice on alleged gaps in internship provision at HEC-recognized institutions, noting roughly two-thirds of universities are public and the remaining one-third are private.
Farooqi asserted that no university in the country operates without an internship program.
Internships are matched to students' fields of study, placing computer-science majors in software firms, agriculture students on farms, and mechanical-engineering students at Oil and Gas Development Company Limited sites.
Each internship carries three academic credit hours on the transcript.
MNA Alia Kamran asked if the number of internships meets demand as universities expand, and claimed a university was charging Rs25,000 for internships, without naming it.
In reply, Farooqi said the federal ministry had sent a letter via HEC to all universities about a month earlier, instructing them to ease the financial load on students.
Under the new rule, students will be billed for only one credit hour rather than three.
She added that oversight of the internship policy has been tightened to guarantee more students get placements without extra fees, and promised to share details of the monitoring teams with the House.
