Edwardes College

As you survey the Edwardes College website you may notice the button Edwardes Purpose just below the Home button.  What you find there is a very brief encapsulation of recent thinking in the College about our Mission, Goals, and Vision.

The Mission Statement is one short sentence: The mission of Edwardes College is to educate and develop professionals who will be leaders in meeting the opportunities and challenges of Pakistan today.

A few comments on that statement: Mission has to do with sending and being sent, so this mission statement tells you what we as the College believe we are sent to accomplish.  Education is the first task in that mission.  We use the term “develop”, in addition to "educate", to communicate that character formation as vital as education in the College’s mission.

Edwardians have always gone into the professions – teaching, medicine, engineering, counseling, military, civil service, government – so we state clearly that we seek to educate and develop professionals.  Moreover, we want these professionals to be leaders both in their fields and in the society as a whole.  Pakistan is facing major challenges today, as well as many opportunities, so we plan for our graduates to be leaders in the nation’s efforts to respond to those opportunities and challenges.  

Many Edwardes graduates have gone on to render outstanding service beyond Pakistan – in other parts of Asia, in the UK and Europe, in North America.  We continue to encourage such enterprise, but we do specify Pakistan in our mission statement because we believe our first call is to provide this nation with leaders in the professions here.

The Goals Statement specifies the particular ways in which Edwardes seeks to fulfill its mission.  

It may surprise you that we put “Responds to the needs of a diverse society” first, even before education!  Why?  Because the College’s entire programme will be effective in shaping future leaders only if it is designed to respond to the needs of Pakistani society in all its diversity – social and economic diversity, political and religious diversity.  Only then will “education at the highest possible standard” be useful to the society.

We are aware that Pakistan is going though a very challenging period in its history, so the career preparation we offer is designed to help students explore and respond to the challenges of today.  

The community of the College itself is included among our goals because education is a community enterprise, not simply the mental exercise of the solitary student with his or her books.  Thus we seek to cultivate a community where people interact in a mutually appreciative way and where diverse talents can flourish.

The last three goals focus on character and spirituality.  Many personal characteristics could be chosen, but it seems to us that integrity, responsibility and creativity include many others.  Whatever a person’s religion, we encourage personal faithfulness in that practice, a College commitment that is symbolized by the campus including both a mosque and a chapel.  At the same time, the College builds on its Christian heritage even as it promotes inter-religious harmony, so important in the Pakistan of today.  

The Vision Statement is a simple and ambitious expression of our hope for the future: Edwardes College aims to be the best institution of higher education in the region.

A major feature of this vision is that the College is working toward becoming a degree-granting institution on its own.  It is ironic that Edwardes is the oldest institution of higher education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but is not yet a university, even though many more recently founded institutions are now universities.  Working toward this goal has many aspects: enhancing faculty qualifications, ensuring top-quality classroom teaching, upgrading policies and facilities.  As we move in this direction Edwardes will able to fulfill the scope of the mission for which it was founded in 1900.