Keywords
How to Cite
Abstract
In a globalized world, international education has become a priority. However, International students face many problems during their education. Pakistan presents different challenges, due to its cultural diversity. Data on experiences of International Students in Pakistan is scarce. We present experiences of Postgraduate medical students studying in Pakistan. This helps in understanding the problems faced by these students and will help in future policy making. This is an explanatory, mixed method, qualitative research design, collecting data from King Edward Medical University, Fatima Jinnah Medical University and University of Health Sciences, Lahore. In first phase, quantitative data was collected using a questionnaire, incorporating personal psychological, general living, academic, social‑cultural and English language proficiency issues (Chen et al., 2025). Second phase was used to clarify original findings of quantitative data by phenomenology approach of qualitative study design including interviewing eight Nepali and one Afghani student (Oduwaye et al., 2023). Among all, 63.3% students stated that teaching methods were different from how they learnt previously, still, 69.3% agreed that most of the teachers in Pakistan were excellent facilitators, though 43.3% participants consider this assessment system according to international standards (Worae & Edgerton, 2023). Most of them didn’t feel any discriminatory behavior from their peers (56.7%) as well as from their teachers (61.7%) (Zia & Bashir, 2024).
Overall, student’s adjustment to Pakistan was good. They struggled initially in general but seemed to be satisfied with academics and assessment system. Security threats, visa office issues and certain administrative issues need specific attention (Zia & Bashir, 2024; Okoli & Nweke, 2025).