Transgender students in Pakistan’s Sindh province could get scholarships for higher education, but the plan needs special approval first. Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said that approval would be sought from the board of the Sindh Educational Endowment Fund, Daily Times reported this week. The money would come from the fund, which was set up in 2002-03 for “deserving and needy students of the Province of Sindh,” its website says.
Shah made the announcement at a meeting with a delegation from the transgender community, Daily Times reported. It included Shahzadi Rai, Sindh’s focal person for the transgender community and a member of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s city council. “It is the first time in Pakistan’s history that such an opportunity has been given,” Rai said in May 2023, The News reported, when the Pakistan Peoples Party nominated her for one of the council’s two seats reserved for transgender people.
The delegation, which also included Zehrish Khanzadi of the Gender Interactive Alliance and Kami Choudhry, executive director of the Sub Rang Society, described trouble getting admitted and staying in school, Daily Times reported. Many in the community hope education will help them overcome economic and social barriers and find dignified work, the delegation said.
“We are known in the society by stereotyped profession such as begging, dancing and sex working, which is not true,” Khanzadi told Dawn in April 2022, after an earlier delegation met Shah.
How Sindh Educational Endowment Fund Scholarships Work
The endowment fund’s board, which the education minister chairs, would have to grant the special approval. That would let deserving transgender students receive scholarships so money doesn’t keep them from their studies, Daily Times reported. The fund’s FAQ page lists “Students who are domiciled in Sindh and are enrolled in a recognized educational institution in Pakistan,” along with “Academic merit (minimum 2.5 GPA or 60% percentage).”
The Daily Times report gave no amounts, eligibility rules or start date for the Sindh transgender scholarships. The most recent application window the FAQ lists ran July 1 to Sept. 30, 2024. “The scholarship amount may vary depending on the level of study, academic performance, and financial need,” it says.
The fund pays students’ fees from the profit on its capital, Dawn reported in May 2025. That capital had reached Rs12.617 billion by June 2026, when the board approved 2,662 new scholarships for the 2024-25 academic year and renewed 5,853, The News reported.
“Many students cannot reach universities due to financial constraints,” Shah said in May 2025. “Through the scholarships, students from Sindh can pursue higher education at over 90 public and private universities across the country.”
Appeal of Shariat Court’s Transgender Act Ruling Still Pending
Pakistan’s Parliament passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in 2018. In May 2023, the Federal Shariat Court struck provisions that let people change the gender on their identity documents based on self-perceived identity, saying self-identification would create “serious religious, legal and social problems,” The Associated Press reported.
“We absolutely intend to appeal the court’s findings to the Supreme Court, and we will prevail,” Nayyab Ali, executive director of Transgender Rights Consultants Pakistan, said at a news conference, the AP reported. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called it a “regressive ruling” and said denying transgender people self-perceived gender identity seeks the “erasure of an entire demographic and its fundamental rights.”
Farhatullah Babar, then the Pakistan Peoples Party’s secretary general, took the case to the Supreme Court’s Shariat Appellate Bench that July. Not recognizing transgender people “leaves a legal black hole,” he argued, Dawn reported.
The appeal is still pending, according to the South Asian Translaw Database kept by India’s Centre for Law and Policy Research. NADRA, the national ID agency, resumed registering transgender people in September 2023 because the case had reached the Supreme Court, Rida Qazi, its public engagement director, told Dawn.
Pakistan accounted for 14 entries on Gayety’s 2025 Transgender Day of Remembrance list, and police in Bahawalnagar arrested two brothers last month after a trans woman named Zoya was killed. “Our lives are in danger,” Rai told AFP in October 2023. “I have never seen our community this distressed.”
Sindh’s Transgender Education Policy Still a Draft After Shah’s 2022 Pledge
Shah first agreed to write an education policy for transgender people in April 2022, after meeting the Gender Interactive Alliance and the Moorat Interactive Society, Dawn reported. “Such schools are imparting education to transgender people in Multan and Bahawalpur,” Khanzadi told the paper, pointing to two cities in Punjab.
In June 2023, ARY News reported that the draft policy had entered its final phase and that Shah said scholarships would also be awarded to transgender people.
A meeting Shah chaired approved a draft in November 2024 that proposed a transgender category on admission forms, a job quota in teacher recruitment and special schools, Dawn reported. When the PPP nominated her in 2023, Rai pledged to “formulate such policies which would be inclusive for all genders, including the transgender community.”
At his meeting with the delegation, Shah said the draft had already been prepared and would go to the relevant cabinet committee for approval, Daily Times reported. First, though, it would be reviewed in direct consultations with community representatives to address their concerns and objections, he said.
Shah also said Sindh’s recruitment policy provides a job quota for transgender people. Anyone in the community with the required education and skills should have the same right to teach as any other citizen, he said. Shah and the delegation agreed to speed up the consultations so the draft can be finalized and move toward approval.
