HEC sets a second IT skills test for January, after a first one that 61 percent of candidates failed

The Higher Education Commission has tentatively set 23 and 24 January 2027 for the second National Skill Competency Test, which it describes as mandatory for every seventh and eighth semester student in a computing or IT programme. The first sitting, on 4 and 5 April, shows what the commission is likely to find again. The national average was 46.28 out of 100, and 61.4 percent of candidates landed in the F bracket of HEC's own grading scale.

The January test will be computer based and held at more than 100 venues. It covers main campuses, sub campuses, constituent colleges and affiliated colleges. The April round was free. HEC promised one academic credit to qualifying students and a joint certificate from HEC, the Pakistan Software Export Board and P@SHA to high achievers, and said universities would be placed in performance tiers. Institutions that failed to facilitate registration would be ranked below the lowest tier.

What the April report counted

HEC's overview report on the 2026 test, run with the Virtual University of Pakistan, shows how thin the funnel was. Universities uploaded 57,241 candidate records. Of those, 46,155 began signing up, 40,784 completed registration and 33,038 sat the test, at 165 centres in 112 cities. That is 81.0 percent of registered students and 57.7 percent of the uploaded records. The other way to read it is that 24,203 uploaded records, 42 percent, never reached the exam room, and 7,746 of them belonged to students who had registered.

The scores bunch in the middle. The largest group, 10,324 candidates, scored between 40 and 49. Only 13.6 percent scored above 60. On HEC's grading scale, 61.4 percent of candidates, more than 20,000 students, fell in the F bracket, and the D and F brackets together held nearly 83 percent.

The 2024 centralised test for IT graduates is the only earlier benchmark. It drew 9,253 candidates, and 13.9 percent of them scored above 60. Applying those shares gives about 1,290 students above 60 in 2024 (9,253 times 0.139) and about 4,490 in 2026 (33,038 times 0.136). The number of high scorers rose roughly 3.5 times, but the share barely moved. A wider net caught more strong students and more weak ones in the same proportions.

Where the gaps are

Geography explains more than gender. Islamabad was the only region where most candidates passed, at 52.9 percent. Sindh stood at 42.0 percent and Punjab at 39.4 percent. The failure rate was 68.9 percent in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 69.8 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 71.0 percent in Balochistan. Rural candidates passed at 26 to 28 percent, against 40.5 percent for urban women and 44.5 percent for urban men. Men outnumbered women 21,047 to 11,990, yet the national pass rate differed by only 2.5 percentage points.

Between institutions the spread was wider still. Habib University had a pass rate of 96.5 percent, the Information Technology University of the Punjab 90.4 percent, FAST 89.5 percent and NUST 89.2 percent. The list of leading universities still reaches down to the National University of Technology at 57.1 percent. By topic, candidates averaged 54.1 percent in web development but 33.8 percent in operating systems, 40.2 percent in data structures and algorithms and 42.3 percent in database systems. By question type, they scored 49.5 percent on recall, 45.1 percent on applying a known rule and 44.8 percent on analysis.

What the scores suggest

Application and analysis questions sit 0.3 of a point apart, and even recall questions averaged under half marks. That suggests candidates lose marks on the content itself, not on the harder style of question. The weakness sits in foundations such as operating systems, algorithms and databases, while the applied subject, web development, scored best. The pattern points to programmes that teach tools before the theory underneath them.

A second round raises the stakes for different institutions in different ways. Universities near the top of the table, such as Habib and ITU, gain from the tiers and the joint certificate. Sub campuses and affiliated colleges, now named in the mandate, carry the most exposure, because a test that must be sat by every eligible student reaches candidates who may not have been well represented in April. If more of them sit, the national average could move either way. The 24,203 uploaded records that never sat show where a university can lose ground before a single question is answered.

HEC published the April results on 17 June. For January, the dates remain tentative, and the figures to beat are the 46.28 average and the 13.6 percent who scored above 60.