About APS
Character, campus, and the seventy years behind APS
Abbottabad Public School was founded in 1957 as Pakistan's first residential school of its kind — set fifty-five acres above the city, on the Mansehra Road that runs on toward the Karakoram Highway.
Campus — Mansehra Road, Abbottabad
Character is Destiny
A school built on character, since 1957
APS was built in the tradition of the British public school, and shaped by the character of the Frontier: rigorous in the classroom, serious about sport, and organised — as it has been from the start — around eight boarding houses that become, for six years, a second family.
The school asks something specific of every boy who comes through its gates: that he try hardest not when he is watched, but when he is not. That has been true of this school since 1957, and it remains the whole of what "Character is Destiny" means.
History
Since 1957
Nearly seventy years in the same hills, under the same mountain.
1956
Land in the hills outside Abbottabad is set aside by Pakistan Railways for a new residential school — chosen for a setting almost nowhere else in the country could match.
1957
Foundations are laid on the Mansehra Road site, and the vision of Pakistan's first public school begins to take physical shape.
1961
The school opens its doors under founding Principal M.A. Rehman, admitting its first boys as Pakistan's first institution of its kind.
1960s–70s
The eight boarding houses are established, each named for a figure the school still asks its students to measure themselves against.
Today
APS continues as one of Pakistan's most respected schools for boys — shaped, as it always has been, by the hills that surround it.
Campus
Fifty-five acres, on Mansehra Road
The campus sits on fifty-five acres of pine forest and playing fields, at roughly 4,500 feet above sea level, with the mountain wall of the Frontier at its back and the road that becomes the Karakoram Highway running past its gate.
Within the boundary are the eight boarding houses, an academic block, dining halls, playing fields for cricket, hockey, football, and athletics, and the campus mosque and library — every place a boy needs from morning prep to evening lights‑out.
Leadership
A Message from the Principal
"APS asks something specific of every boy who comes through its gates: that he try hardest not when he is watched, but when he is not. That has been true of this school since 1957, and it remains the whole of what we mean by 'Character is Destiny.' Whether on the games field, in the classroom, or in his house at night, a boy's character is being built here — and it is the thing he will carry longest after he leaves us."
Mr. Akhtar Ali Qureshi
Principal · Abbottabad Public School
Leadership
Governance and school leadership
The school is led by the Principal, supported by senior staff and House Masters resident in each of the eight boarding houses. Every boy at APS has a House Master who knows him by name.
Principal
The Principal's Office
Sets the academic direction of the school and holds oversight of every side of school life — academics, boarding, sport, and pastoral care.
Housemasters
Eight resident House Masters
Each of the eight boarding houses has a House Master who lives on campus and is responsible for the day-to-day welfare and discipline of the boys in his house.
Prefects
Boys' leadership
Senior boys hold real responsibility for the boys below them within their house — the beginning of leadership rather than the reward for it.