ISLAMABAD, Oct 31(Focus Pakistan) — Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday ordered round-the-clock construction on Daanish Schools across Pakistan and told officials he would tolerate no compromise on quality. He wants the schools open fast. Too many children are waiting for too few desks.
He spoke on a Zoom call with ministers and senior officials, who walked him through work on schools in Gilgit-Baltistan, AJK, Sindh and Balochistan.
Sharif called the schools “an investment in a bright future” and said “our children are the future of the country.” Admission, he said, would go strictly on merit to children from the poorest and most deserving families
The numbers behind that pledge are stark.
When the Islamabad Daanish School at Kuri opened admissions earlier this year, more than 7,000 children applied for just 210 seats in grades six to eight. That works out to roughly 35 applicants for every place. The FBISE set up 29 test centres, some as far off as Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK. Officials said the rush from Balochistan, GB and the old tribal belt was overwhelming.
Put simply, children are already lining up for every new campus before it opens.
The prime minister’s office released no fresh completion figures after Saturday’s session. Officials had earlier set June 2026 as the target for three GB schools at Sultanabad, Ghanche and Astore, and for the AJK campuses at Bagh and Bhimber. The order for 24-hour shifts shows that Islamabad wants the remaining work finished without delay.
Speed alone will not satisfy Sharif. He ordered third-party validation of the infrastructure, facilities and services at the schools, repeating a demand he first made at a similar review last year. Inside the classroom, he told authorities to build teaching around artificial intelligence and IT-based methods so students graduate with up-to-date knowledge and skills.
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Geography poses a separate test. Sharif directed the Ministry of Communications to build an efficient road network that gives children easy access to the campuses in Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK. A modern school serves little purpose if pupils cannot reach it, and many of the GB and AJK sites lie in mountain districts far from main highways.
He also pressed officials to put a strategy on the table “at the earliest” for Daanish Schools in the merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly FATA. Sharif first promised that expansion in January 2025, when he launched AJK’s first Daanish School project. Nearly two years on, the tribal districts still await a plan.
Balochistan is further ahead. The Central Development Working Party has approved Daanish School projects in Qila Saifullah, Sibi, Dera Bugti, Musakhel and Zhob. They form part of a six-project package worth Rs19.25 billion that also covers one school in AJK.
The initiative carries personal weight for the prime minister. Sharif founded the Daanish system as Punjab chief minister, and the federal government now plans 15 new schools nationwide along with a Daanish University in Islamabad.
Punjab offers the template. Its Daanish campuses in Rahim Yar Khan, Chishtian, Hasilpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Vehari and elsewhere board their students and keep most places for poor families. The first ones took in students in 2010.
Admissions for the 2027 session are already open. Applications close on Nov 12 and the entry test is set for Dec 12, according to the admission schedule.
Federal ministers Ahsan Iqbal, Ahad Khan Cheema, Attaullah Tarar, Shaza Fatima Khawaja and Dr Musadik Masood Malik joined the meeting, along with senior officials from the relevant departments and institutions.
