LAHORE: Britain’s 58th Premier, Keir Rodney Starmer, enters the distinguished club of many international rulers and celebrities who have studied at the 928-year-old University of Oxford, which is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second-oldest educational institution in continuous operation after Italy’s University of Bologna, research shows.
Synonymous with excellence in education and leadership, University of Oxford now counts 31 British Premiers including the outgoing PM Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Theresa May, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Edward Heath, Clement Attlee, Harold Macmillan, H.H. Asquith, William Gladstone, Harold Wilson, Spencer Compton, Henry Pelham, William Pitt The Elder , Fredrick North, George Grenville, William Petty, William Cavendish, Henry Addington, Robert Jenkinson, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Archibald Primrose, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, George Canning, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Smith-Stanley and Sir Robert Peel.
The 61-year-old British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, gained a postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1986 from Saint Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford, which contributes around £15.7 billion (equivalent to Pakistani Rs 5.591 trillion) to the UK economy, supports 16,351 jobs, has an Endowment Fund of 8.066 billion British Pound Sterling (equal to Pakistani Rs 2.873 trillion) in 2024, a Budget of 2.924 billion Pounds (Pakistani Rs 1.041 trillion), an academic staff of 6,945 and provides education to 26,945 students including 12,470 undergraduates and 13,920 post-graduates.
Six Pakistani rulers including the likes of Imran Khan, Liaquat Ali Khan, Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former President Sardar Farooq Leghari and Benazir Bhutto also studied at Oxford, which is made up of 43 colleges, four halls, three societies and six semi-autonomous colleges, each with its own heritage, charter and tradition.