By Dr Rabia Chishti
In an age where every family is calculating survival in numbers, fuel prices, school fees, electricity bills, and medical expenses, education is no longer judged by how prestigious it sounds, but by how deeply it prepares a person to live with dignity in a world of uncertainty. Parents today are not only asking, “Which degree sounds respectable?” but “Which degree helps my child survive, earn, manage, create, and lead?”
The BS Home Economics programme, long structured around six major fields of study, continues its tradition of evolving with societal needs. In the 2025 HEC revised curriculum, the discipline of Emerging Technologies including digital literacy, smart systems and Artificial Intelligence in the context of home planning, learning and design has been formally integrated with Home Economics Education. True to its philosophy, Home Economics has consistently updated its curriculum to remain in step with economic, social, technological and environmental change, making it one of the few degrees shaped directly by real life rather than theory alone.
Homes today are not merely living spaces; they are micro-economies. A woman who knows how to budget for food, healthcare, education, energy, savings and emotional well-being is not “just managing a home” she is running an institution. A qualified Home Economist studies family finance, where she learns how to allocate a household budget across its major sectors: food and nutrition, health and medical care, education and learning resources, home utilities and maintenance, savings, emergency funds and family comfort or recreation. This is not guesswork; it is a discipline rooted in economics, psychology and design thinking. A home becomes stable not because income is high, but because decisions are informed.
The revised curriculum also strengthens the field’s longstanding focus on environmental responsibility. Students learn how to make sustainable choices in food, clothing, interiors, waste management and energy use. A Home Economics graduate can design a child’s study space to improve learning behaviour, plan an interior that reduces energy consumption, or develop a weekly menu that is nutritious, seasonal and affordable. These are not abstract ideas for research papers, they are solutions that a household needs every single day.
Another dimension of this degree, often overlooked, is emotional and psychological well-being. Through the discipline of Human and Family Studies, students explore child development, ageing, communication styles, conflict resolution, stress management, and the mental health needs of different family members. In a society where depression, academic pressure and social isolation are rapidly increasing, this knowledge is not secondary it is critical.
The addition of technology and AI makes the degree even more relevant. The woman who once needed physical presence to work can now run a home bakery, textile studio, interior consultancy, parenting blog, nutrition channel or digital craft business all from a laptop. The idea that women must choose between home and career is quietly becoming obsolete. Today, the most empowered woman is the one who understands how to manage both not by doubling her labour, but by working with knowledge, planning, and skill.
That is why the degree cannot be reduced to stitching, cooking or child-rearing. A graduate of Home Economics may become an interior designer, textile or fashion designer, dietitian, clinical or family psychologist, art educationist, ceramic artist, food industry expert, researcher or entrepreneur. The versatility of the discipline is not an accident; it was always designed to reflect the range of responsibilities and creative potential women carry.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where families seek secure, culturally respectful and financially promising futures for their daughters, the BS Home Economics degree offers a rare balance: it allows women to stay rooted in family life while stepping into economic participation with confidence. It affirms that empowerment does not require abandoning cultural identity only strengthening it with education.
Since its establishment in 1954, the College of Home Economics at the University of Peshawar has served as a pioneering institution for women’s higher education in the province. As the oldest Home Economics college in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it has provided a safe, academically rigorous and professionally equipped environment where knowledge is not only taught but practised through fully functioning laboratories, design studios, food science units, art workshops and research-based teaching. Thousands of women have graduated from this college over seven decades, becoming educators, designers, nutritionists, researchers, civil servants, entrepreneurs and community leaders a long before the language of “women empowerment” entered mainstream discourse.
The real question is no longer whether women should study, but what kind of education fully equips them for the world they must navigate a world of inflation, climate disruption, digital dependence, mental-health strain and shifting work patterns. BS Home Economics is not a degree of the past. It is a curriculum, create and lead one family, one household, one future at a time.
(Writer Dr Rabia Chishti is
HoD
Department of Art & Design
College of Home Economics, UoP)
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