Eight Educational Institutes Of Karachi Before Partition

Karachi, the capital of Sindh happens to be an important port city, like Mumbai it is city of dreams, it feeds millions of people every day. But after the partition of sub-continent in 1947, there is an ongoing war on the ownership of Karachi. However, Karachi happened to be a pure Sindhi city with peaceful minority groups like Zoroastrians, Kathwaris, some Baloch tribes, Christians and some Jewish families before the partition.

When the settlers from UP, CP and Bihar left their motherlands during partition, they were given ownership of Karachi and since that day, these settlers are found engaged in conspiracy against Sindh and Sindhis living in Karachi, after the rise of Mohajir Quomi Movement (MQM), which later during Musharraf’s dictatorship changed its name to Muthida Quomi Movement, a fascist group started killing peace loving citizens of Karachi and their demand of Karachi to be separated from Sindh, grew with every passing day. MQM shamelessly claims that it is the one that built Karachi and brought civilization here, while nowadays Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its fools like Fixit, are helping MQM to fulfill their dream.

But according to historic records Karachi was a well-established city with educational institutes, cinemas, bazaars, and monuments. Here is a list of eight educational institutes of Karachi that were established long before partition:

1    1-  Karachi Grammar School (1847): Established in 1847, Karachi Grammar School is considered as one of highly reputable educational institutes of Sindh’s capital Karachi. It is situated Saddar, the school in English medium, with coeducation system. It also has boarding facilities and as many as 2,400 students between the age groups of three to nineteen are enrolled in this school.

     2- NJV High School (1855): NJV School established in 1855, is considered as the first government school of Karachi. It started its operations with 68 boys enrolled in it. The school was named after a visionary reformist Narayan Jagannath Vaidya. The school is situated at M.A Jinnah Road, at start NJV had a different building, but from 1876, it has been operating from the present building. After partition, some portion of school building was allotted to Department of Education, but later on that portion was retrieved by the school.

     3- St. Patrick’s High School (1861): This is a Catholic school located at Saddar, Karachi, it was established by the Jesuits, and after partition its administration was taken over by diocesan clergy of Archdiocese of Karachi. This school is the second oldest educational institute of Sindh’s capital Karachi. Because of its notable alumni, St. Patricks is also known as ‘School for Elites’.

    4- Sindh Madarrastul-Islam (1885): Hassan Ali Effendi, a well-known Sindhi educationist established this institute in 1885, it is located at Aiwan-e-Tijarat , it produced great scholars and political leaders of sub-continent. Recently it got the status of a university.

    5-  DJ Science College (1887): This was a public community college named after Dayaram Jethamal, it was established in 1887, and has a vast building that is divided into two portions. DJ Science College offers courses in pre-engineering and pre-medical, while it is also a degree college.

    6-  NED University (1923): In 1921 Prince of Wales Engineering College was established in Karachi to train civil engineers, who were to work on Sukkur Barrage project and later it was named after Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw, a Zoroaster reformist and philanthropist, initials of his name NED are given to this engineering university. It is located at KU Road, and its campus has 156 acres of land.  

     7- Dow University (1945): Dow University is considered as one of the oldest university of Pakistan, it started working as medical college in 1945. It is known for its emphasis on economics biomedical, health, and medical research programs. Even this institute was established for people of Sindh, but some time ago Sindhi female students were thrown out of the hostel by biased university administration, while a female doctor was suspended just because she used Sindhi language with patients, despite the fact that those patients were also Sindhi speaking, the biased administration also accused the doctor for writing the prescription in Sindhi. Though Sindhi is the official and national language of Sindh province and Karachi is capital of Sindh, still there are such biased people who don’t allow Sindhis to speak their language.

    8- Sindh Muslim Law College (1947):  Sindh Muslim Law College or SM Law College is considered one of the oldest law colleges of Pakistan; it was established in June 1947, months before the partition of sub-continent. It is situated in Saddar Town, Karachi, while its numerous students have reached the position of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP).