“In these ten years [the Aga Khan School in Osh] has made some significant successes through its students and its teachers,” remarked Princess Zahra. Some 246 of its graduates have pursued post-secondary studies at local and international universities, and the school has become the first to be awarded a license from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education to offer certified professional development programmes to government school teachers.

Though a young school, Princess Zahra cited it as “a shining example of Aga Khan Schools around the world,” upholding a tradition that has been a hallmark of the Aga Khan Education Services in East Africa, South Asia and Central Asia for more than a century. It teaches time-tested academic subjects and skills, building on the Central Asian tradition of encouraging students to master multiple languages. The school also gives great importance to fostering in students the qualities of inquisitiveness, critical thinking, and problem solving, in an ethical framework.

“Some Aga Khan Schools around the world have survived through very difficult situations in terms of natural disasters, revolutions, wars, tremendous upheavals, social upheavals and social change,” noted Princess Zahra. “But in all circumstances, schools strived to achieve a quality education and teacher training and to provide all of the children … with a pluralistic and diverse and international education which will give them – as my father said ten years ago – ‘an access to international and modern world.'”