A young student at the Aga Khan School Booni, Chitral. In Pakistan, more than half of the 27,000 Aga Khan School students are girls.
AKDN / Noor Fareed
A young student at the Aga Khan School Booni, Chitral. In Pakistan, more than half of the 27,000 Aga Khan …
AKDN / Noor Fareed
The Aga Khan School, Mundra, India.
AKDN
The Aga Khan School, Mundra, India.
AKDN
AKES in South Asia
Aga Khan schools in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been providing education since the beginning of the 20th century. The first was established in 1905 in Mundra, Gujarat, by Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, and is still here today. The first in Pakistan began in the same year in Gwadar, Balochistan.
180
We run over 180 schools in South Asia (including pre-schools) and six hostels.
62,000
We serve over 62,000 students.
17
We received 17 awards for our work in India in 2020-21.
180
We run over 180 schools in South Asia (including pre-schools) and six hostels.
62,000
We serve over 62,000 students.
17
We received 17 awards for our work in India in 2020-21.
In the 1940s, during the Diamond Jubilee of Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, a major initiative was undertaken to establish more schools. These were particularly aimed at girls in northern Pakistan and in western India, for whom education was often inaccessible.
Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) now operates over 180 schools in South Asia, of which the majority are in Pakistan. A significant proportion of our schools are located in remote or rural areas.
In total, we serve over 62,000 students and employ over 4,500 staff. A significant proportion of students are from rural areas, with an equal proportion of males and females. We improve the quality of education in some of the remotest parts of the world, while developing curricula that are compatible with the needs of rural communities.
Pakistan
AKES, Pakistan is one of the largest private networks of educational institutions in the country. In the 1920s, Aga Khan schools started to be established in the South region (Karachi and interior Sindh) and from the late 1940s until the 1970s the schools network expanded across Gilgit-Baltistan. In the 1980s, more schools started to be established in Chitral.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
The network serves over 53,000 students. It has over 3,500 employees and is supported by over 2,000 volunteers. We operate five hostels to enable students from rural areas with little education provision to complete high-quality secondary education, allowing them to go onto university.
The pre-primary programme is based on the internationally recognised HighScope preschool curriculum. From primary onwards, schools follow the Pakistan national curriculum and use, or are transitioning to, the Aga Khan University Examination Board.
India
In India, we manage eight schools, a network of 19 preschools and a hostel that provides an access ladder to a national curriculum quality education for students living in areas where such provision is not available. The schools serve over 8,000 students across Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana.
Bangladesh
The Aga Khan School in Dhaka, Bangladesh was established in 1988. It is one of the leading English medium schools in the country and offers international curricula.