Nine departments of the University of Peshawar will be shut down starting in the current semester, autumn 2025, due to low admission rates for their individual Bachelor of Studies (BS) programs.

Official notification states, the following bachelor's degree programs will be discontinued: home economics, human development and family studies, geography, geology, history, social anthropology, statistics, logistics and supply chain analytics, and development studies.

A single applicant had submitted applications for admission to the following programs: BS in human development and family studies; BS in development studies; BS in logistics and supply chain analytics; BS in home economics; three each for geography and history; five for social anthropology; seven for statistics; and fourteen for geology.

According to the regulations, the aforementioned degree programs will no longer be offered. According to the notification, in order to protect their academic future, it is therefore recommended that qualified students be assigned to the Director of Admissions' office to provide them an alternative academic program.

There were about 69 departments at UoP, according to sources who spoke to Dawn, and each department had 60 students enrolled in the four-year BS degree. They said that a number of important disciplines had also seen a decline in student enrollment, including chemistry, mathematics, social work, Urdu, Pashto, journalism and mass communication, disaster management, and urban area planning.

A notification has been issued by the UoP administration in this regard. If there are less than 15 students accepted into a program, the admission will be deemed canceled in accordance with preapproved university standards. The aforementioned programs, for the autumn 2025 session, are listed below the authorized number, according to the undergraduate admission record that is accessible through the portal," the warning said.

Academician Yousaf Ali stated that the University of Peshawar in particular, as well as other higher education institutions in general, had a number of causes for the drop in enrollment in the Bachelor of Science degree. "The universities and the higher education administrative department failed to create a proper data hub where real and reliable data was available for planning and policy-making," he continued.

However, according to data from the higher education department, the number of students enrolled in BS, MPhil, and PhD programs at universities and affiliated institutions decreased from 160,000 in 2022 to 155,000 in 2025. It confirms that there is a declining trend in higher education enrollment overall.

Mr. Ali claimed that the implementation of the BS program without adequate planning, concurrently at the college and university levels, was the main cause of the falling enrollment.