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

[Riaz Haq]

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."

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