Syed Shabbar Zaidi, former chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue, provided another topic for debate on Friday after he said that students qualified under the Cambridge system dominate all the fields in Pakistan.

“We are creating four classes. Uneducated 20 million; Madrassas 7 to 8 million, Metric System 15 million; Cambridge 46000. Pakistan is for these 46,000 students. In all fields,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He also compared the Cambridge system students in Pakistan to those of India which has a population of 1.48 billion while the Cambridge system in the neighbouring country is lower compared to its humongous population.

“46,000 student qualified under Cambridge system in Pakistan in 2023. In India the number is only 68,000,” Zaidi added.

However, most people who responded disagreed with his views that Pakistan’s professions are dominated by the system which is believed to be affordable only for elites.

They were of the view that most of the graduates of the Cambridge system leave the country to explore better opportunities in foreign countries as soon as they complete their education.

Some of them claimed that people from the metric system join the armed forces, attempt competitive examinations or choose medical and engineering professions in the country.

The multiple educational systems and their integration have been a centre of discussion for several decades in the country, with the former government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf showing its desire to implement a single national curriculum in 2020.

Former prime minister Imran Khan in August 2021 rolled out the single national curriculum aimed at bringing a uniform system of education to the country, Arab News reported.

Khan had been saying that he would recast the education system to ensure that private and public schools and religious seminaries followed a uniform curriculum. The aim, as the education ministry argued, was a system under which “all children have a fair and equal opportunity to receive high quality education.”