International Schools: Pakistan Ranks Among Top 5 Countries in the World

Pakistan ranks among the top 5 nations in terms of international schools offering schooling based on International Baccalaureate (IB) and IGCSE (Cambridge) curricula. China leads with 1,000 international schools, followed by India (900), UAE (784), Pakistan (598) and Brazil (415). The medium of instruction in these schools is English. 

Aitchison College, Lahore, Pakistan


The international schools in India and Pakistan date back to the days of the British Raj when these schools were established to serve the children of the British and the British-Indian civil servants. Later, these schools also attracted the children of diplomats and expats as well as Indian and Pakistani elites. Today, the vast majority of students attending these schools are the children of rich Indians and Pakistanis. 


Karachi Grammar School, Karachi, Pakistan



The international schools favored by Pakistani elites include Aitchison College, Karachi Grammar School,  Lahore Grammar School and the American International Schools located in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. The tuition at the most expensive international schools in Pakistan runs from $12,000 to $15,000 a year. Beaconhouse schools in Pakistan cost less than these select schools. The graduates of international schools often attend elite universities in the UK and the United States, in addition to top Pakistani private universities like LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) in Lahore and the Aga Khan University in Karachi. 

The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan


Former finance minister Dr. Miftah Ismail, a member of Karachi's rich business elite, attended Karachi Grammar School and went on to earn a PhD from UPenn's Wharton School of Business.  In an article in Dawn newspaper titled "The One Percent Republic", he wrote about elitism in education as follows: 

"There are around 400,000 schools in Pakistan. Yet in some years half of our Supreme Court judges and members of the federal cabinet come from just one school: Aitchison College in Lahore. Karachi Grammar School provides an inordinate number of our top professionals and richest businessmen. If we add the three American schools, Cadet College Hasanabdal (alma mater of military top brass) and a few expensive private schools, maybe graduating 10,000 kids in total, we can be sure that these few kids will be at the top of most fields in Pakistan in the future, just as their fathers are at the very top today..... Pakistan’s economy thus only relies on whatever a small elite can achieve. It remains underdeveloped as it ignores the talent of most in the country."


Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan attended Aitchison College, an elite school established in Lahore by South Asia's colonial rulers to produce faithful civil servants during the British Raj. He then went on to graduate from Oxford University in England. Here's an excerpt of what he wrote in an article published by the Arab News on January 14, 2002:

"My generation grew up at a time when colonial hang up was at its peak. Our older generation had been slaves and had a huge inferiority complex of the British. The school I went to was similar to all elite schools in Pakistan. Despite gaining independence, they were, and still are, producing replicas of public schoolboys rather than Pakistanis. I read Shakespeare, which was fine, but no Allama Iqbal — the national poet of Pakistan. The class on Islamic studies was not taken seriously, and when I left school I was considered among the elite of the country because I could speak English and wore Western clothes. Despite periodically shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ in school functions, I considered my own culture backward and religion outdated. Among our group if any one talked about religion, prayed or kept a beard he was immediately branded a Mullah. Because of the power of the Western media, our heroes were Western movie stars or pop stars. When I went to Oxford already burdened with this hang up, things didn’t get any easier. At Oxford, not just Islam, but all religions were considered anachronism."

Related Links:


Comments

Zamir said…
Riaz Sb., thanks for the post. However, I personally believe that individual drive and capabilities play a major role in a persons development. Good schooling and educated back ground gives you an edge but at the end it is your own capabilities that distinguish you.

Raghib is a great example. I had the opportunity to listening to him a while back and was fascinated to find that he received his primary education from a government school.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ned-university-of-engineering-%26-technology-karachi_neduniversity-alumnisuccess-raghibhussain-activity-7317545359361134593-QUGD?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAAAK0dR8BbmxOj8FDLHwf7bgAlGF221zSFRk&utm_source=social_share_send&utm_campaign=whatsapp
April 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Riaz Haq said…
Zamir: "Raghib is a great example. I had the opportunity to listening to him a while back and was fascinated to find that he received his primary education from a government school"

Yes, Raghib is a great example. But he and others like him are not running Pakistan. In fact, they had to leave the country to succeed.

That's exactly the point Dr. Miftah Ismail makes in "The One Percent Republic" when he writes: "...Pakistan’s economy thus only relies on whatever a small elite can achieve. It remains underdeveloped as it ignores the talent of most in the country."
April 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani Women's Growing Particpation in Workforce

Image
While Fareed Zakaria, Nick Kristoff and other talking heads are still stuck on the old stereotypes of Muslim women, the status of women in Muslim societies is rapidly changing, and there is a silent social revolution taking place with rising number of women joining the workforce and moving up the corporate ladder in Pakistan. "More of them(women) than ever are finding employment, doing everything from pumping gasoline and serving burgers at McDonald’s to running major corporations", says a report in the latest edition of Businessweek magazine . Beyond company or government employment, there are a number of NGOs focused on encouraging self-employment and entrepreneurship among Pakistani women by offering skills training and microfinancing . Kashf Foundation led by a woman CEO and BRAC are among such NGOs. They all report that the success and repayment rate among female borrowers is significantly higher than among male borrowers. In rural Sindh, the PPP-led govern...
Read more

Pakistan Among World's Largest Food Producing Countries

Image
Pakistan's agriculture output is the 10th largest in the world. The country produces large and growing quantities of cereals, meat, milk, fruits and vegetables. Currently, Pakistan produces about 38 million tons of cereals (mainly wheat, rice and corn), 17 million tons of fruits and vegetables, 70 million tons of sugarcane, 60 million tons of milk and 4.5 million tons of meat.  Total value of the nation's agricultural output exceeds $50 billion.  Improving agriculture inputs and modernizing value chains can help the farm sector become much more productive to serve both domestic and export markets.   Top 10 Countries by Agriculture Output. Source: FAO Pakistan has about 36 million hectares of land under cultivation. Wheat and rice are grown on more than half of it. Fruits and vegetables each account for only about 3% of the cultivable land.  Since year 2001, the country's cereal production, mainly wheat, corn and rice, has grown about 45% to  38 million tons...
Read more

Pakistan's Saadia Zahidi Leads World Economic Forum's Gender Parity Effort

Image
Pakistan-born, Harvard-educated economist Ms. Saadia Zahidi, author of "50 Million Rising" , is currently a member of the executive committee and the head of Education, Gender and Work at the World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland. She told Kai Ryssdal of APR Marketplace of her visit to a gas field in Pakistan with her geophysicist father where she met Nazia, a woman engineer who inspired her. Saadia Zahidi The "50 Million" in the title of her book refers to the 50 million Muslim women who have joined the work force over the last 15 years bringing the total number of working women in the Muslim world to about 155 million. In her book, Saadia talks about her father being the first in his family to go to university. He believed in girls' education and career opportunities. She recalls him suggesting that "my sister could become a pilot because the Pakistan Air Force had just starting to train women. Another time he speculated that I could become a...
Read more