Shehbaz Inaugurates Daanish School in Islamabad, Vows Equal Opportunities
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday inaugurated the Daanish School Islamabad, saying the project would give talented children from poor families the same opportunities enjoyed by the children of the rich.
Speaking at the ceremony in the federal capital, the premier said the Daanish School Islamabad embodied a vision he had carried since his days leading Punjab: that brilliance should not be wasted simply because a child was born poor.
Daanish School Islamabad: built for the underprivileged
Daanish schools, first introduced by the Punjab government, provide quality boarding education to gifted students from marginalised backgrounds. The network is described as the largest of its kind for girls and boys in the country.
The prime minister said the idea was born from a simple question of fairness. “How come the sons of rich people enter the iron steel gates of Aitchison College; sons of prime ministers, governors, bureaucrats, judges, civil servants, military servants, landlords, mill owners, regardless of their acumen and their level of intelligence,” he asked.
“And those millions of boys and girls, [who are] extremely intelligent, but come from the poorest of backgrounds in the four corners of Pakistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, cannot even imagine opening the gates of Aitchison College, let alone having the opportunity to receive a decent education,” he said.
According to the premier, that thinking led his team to set up the first Daanish schools in 2010. The concept, he said, was introduced “not only to match the quality and level of Aitchison College and other grammar schools all over Punjab and other parts of Pakistan, but to excel”.
Graduates held up as proof
Shehbaz pointed to Daanish School graduates as evidence the model works. He cited a girl from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who overcame hardship, a woman from Bahawalpur who became a doctor after losing her father in childhood, and a boy in the audience who had also become a doctor.
The examples match a pattern seen across the network. Feature Pakistan recently reported the story of Alina, a tailor’s daughter from a Daanish School who became the school’s first female doctor, showing how the schools are already changing individual lives.
The premier stressed that every child deserved the same chance, whether the son or daughter of the richest man in Pakistan or a child who had lost both parents. “If these children are left to waste their time in the muddy streets of their villages and cities, then this is not the Pakistan of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is certainly not his Pakistan,” he said.
Daanish School Islamabad facts
The capital’s school has moved fast since its foundation was laid in 2024 on 10 acres of land allocated by the Capital Development Authority. When admissions opened in March, more than 7,000 students from across Pakistan applied for just 210 seats, a ratio that underlines the demand for free quality schooling.
The school’s board of governors approved a budget of Rs3.8 billion for the 2026-27 year earlier this year. The prime minister also interacted with students on campus during Sunday’s visit. Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui also addressed the ceremony, while a Prime Minister’s Office post hailed “a new dawn of education and excellence” rising in the capital.
Why it matters
The Islamabad campus extends a Punjab-born model to the federal capital at a time when Pakistan’s education emergency remains stark. Millions of children remain out of school, and the gap between elite private institutions and underfunded public schools keeps widening.
The Daanish experiment argues that the answer is not to lower the ceiling but to raise the floor: give poor children boarding schools that rival Aitchison, and let results follow. With 7,000 applicants chasing 210 seats, the demand side of that argument is already settled. The test now is whether the Islamabad campus can deliver on the promise its graduates represent.
FAQ
What is the Daanish School Islamabad?
It is a newly inaugurated boarding school in the federal capital for talented students from underprivileged backgrounds, modelled on the Daanish school network launched in Punjab in 2010.
How many students applied for admission?
More than 7,000 students applied in March for just 210 seats at the Islamabad campus.
What is the school’s budget?
The board of governors approved a Rs3.8 billion budget for the 2026-27 academic year.
When was the school’s foundation laid?
The foundation was laid in 2024 on 10 acres of land allocated by the Capital Development Authority.
