DENIZENS OF ALIEN WORLDS

54
schools, whether the administrators were missionaries or others. In the area now
comprising Pakistan, such schools existed only in the big cities. In the NWFP, for
instance, it was reported in 1938 that ‗the Convent Day School is the major English
school and Europeans also send their children to the ―Army schools‖ in the province‘
(RPI-F 1938: 11). By 1946, besides these schools, the following colleges also used
English as the medium of instruction, except in the classical and vernacular languages
where Urdu was used: Islamia, Edwards, Vedic Bharati, Sanatum Dharan, and the
Government College, Abbottabad (RPI-F 1947: 51).
In Sindh, the English schools were mostly in Karachi. By 1939-40, there were
three in that city: St Patrick‘s, St Joseph‘s, and Jefelhurst. There was one in Hyderabad
(St Bonaventure‘s). The tuition fees in these schools were approximately Rs 99 per year,
in 1938-9, while the government schools charged Rs 34 during this period. The Progress
of Education in India Report for 1932-7 pointed out that there was pressure form the
Indian elite to admit more pupils to the English schools than the quota allowed.
The popularity of these schools among Indian parents is thus obviously
increasing. This is attributed mainly to a higher standard of instruction and more efficient
discipline generally but there is also a tendency on the part of the upper class Indian
parents to send their children to these schools with the object of helping them to acquire
greater fluency in speaking and writing English (PEI 1939: 236).
The number of Indian pupils in European schools, from the area of present day
Pakistan, was as follows in 1938-9.
Box 4.1
Boys
Province Number of Total number Indians
schools of students
Punjab 13 1,507 240
NWFP 1 169 67
Sindh 1 281 53
Balochistan 2 241 85
British India 146 24,519 5,590