HEC has designed PhD admission tests for 48 of 89 subjects, but not yet a format, fee or date

The Higher Education Commission has approved test designs for 48 of the 89 PhD subjects it wants a new national admission test to cover, and has not yet said what the test will look like, what it will cost or when anyone will sit it. That leaves 41 subjects, or 46 percent, without a design. Dr Muhammad Imtiaz Haider, chief executive of the commission's Education Testing Council (ETC), says the Higher Education Aptitude and Achievement Test, or HAAT, will be mandatory for PhD admissions across Pakistan.

The council began building the test in May 2026 and has formed a subject committee for each of the 89 disciplines. More than 250 academics, subject specialists and university representatives from 81 public and private universities took part in the first meeting. HEC chairman Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar opened it, calling for a transparent, merit based and uniform admissions system. Each committee approved a test design and a Table of Specifications and signed its minutes. The commission says the remaining subjects will follow, but has set no timetable.

A blueprint is not yet a test

A Table of Specifications is the plan a paper is built from. It lists the topics in a subject, the share of marks each topic carries and the kind of thinking each question demands, such as recalling a fact or applying a method. It is a necessary first step and nothing more. Question writers must then produce a bank far larger than any one paper needs, so that each sitting can draw a different set. Other experts review those questions, a sample of real students attempts them, and items that behave badly are dropped. Difficulty is then calibrated so that a score in one sitting means the same as a score in the next. None of that has been announced as done.

The pace so far gives a rough measure. Forty eight designs from May to early November is about eight a month. At that rate the other 41 would take a little over five months. The sum counts blueprints only; writing and trialling questions would come after, and the later subjects may go faster or slower than the first.

The Fall 2027 deadline

In May the commission made GRE or HAT scores mandatory for admission to MS, MPhil and PhD programmes, with the tests run by the ETC. On 26 May it moved the start from Fall 2026 to Fall 2027 after several universities asked for more time. The November announcement names the HAAT as the PhD test and does not say how it relates to the HAT subject test required in the May policy. The May policy also covered MS and MPhil admissions, which the November announcement does not mention, so no design work for those programmes has been announced. Universities admit far more students to master's degrees than to doctorates, which makes that gap the larger administrative task.

From today a Fall 2027 intake is about ten months away. In that time HEC has to finish 41 designs, build and trial the questions, and tell applicants the fee, the dates and the format. Universities advertise fall admissions months before classes begin, so the period in which applicants actually know the rules is shorter than the calendar suggests.

Who gains and who loses

Applicants gain if one score is accepted everywhere. A candidate who now sits a separate entry test at each university, and pays a fee at each, would sit one. The HAAT fee has not been published, so the saving cannot be calculated. Universities that run their own tests lose some control over selection, and any fee income those tests bring.

Subjects with few doctoral applicants face a structural problem. A sound question bank costs broadly the same to build whether 50 candidates or 5,000 will use it, so thin disciplines are expensive per head. This is a general feature of standardised testing, not something HEC has said about its plans.

The facts that would settle the questions are the test format, the fee, the scoring method, the date of the first sitting and the date from which PhD admissions must use it. The only fixed date is the Fall 2027 start that HEC set in May for national admission testing.