Roots vs The City School: Which Roots, Which Campus, and What Parents Should Check Before Applying

Before comparing anything, find out which Roots school you are actually looking at. At least four groups in Pakistan carry the name, and each runs its own website. According to the Roots School System's history page, Mrs Riffat Mushtaq opened the first school on 10 April 1988 at 74 Harley Street, Rawalpindi. Roots International Schools & Colleges (RISC) calls itself part of that system and credits her son, Walid Mushtaq, with founding it. The Millennium Education (TME), which runs Roots Millennium Schools, presents itself as an extension of the Roots School System under Dr Chaudhry Faisal Mushtaq. Roots IVY's website dates Roots IVY International Schools to 2012, under Mrs Khadija Mushtaq. A shared origin does not make them one school. Each group publishes its own campus list, and only one name will appear on your fee bill. This guide sets The City School mainly against RISC, the group that SchoolNama's Roots network page points to, and flags where the other Roots groups differ. Roots Millennium gets a fuller treatment in /news/roots-millennium-vs-beaconhouse.

The City School is much bigger and more widely spread. It says it began in Karachi in 1978, now has more than 500 schools and over 150,000 students, and is expanding into other countries including the UAE, Malaysia, the Philippines, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It does not say how many of those schools are in Pakistan, and the timeline on the same page records school launches in each of those countries. The RISC pages we read give no total number of students. Its campuses page, read on 1 October 2026, has 24 entries, among them a Gujranwala campus marked as upcoming and an entry labelled MIUC Islamabad. On its About page, TME puts its own size at 48 campuses spread over more than 20 cities. All of these are the organisations' own figures, and nobody independent has checked them.

Across SchoolNama's 15 launch cities, the footprints look very different. Filtered city by city on 1 October 2026, The City School's campus directory returned 88 campuses, with at least one in every launch city. RISC's list puts 18 entries in seven of those cities: eight in Islamabad, three in Rawalpindi, two each in Karachi and Lahore, and one each in Sialkot, Abbottabad and Peshawar. Its remaining entries are in Chakwal, Wah Cantt and Muzaffarabad, plus the upcoming Gujranwala site. The campus maps on TME's regional pages, counting every pinned entry once, show 32 TME or Roots Millennium campuses across 11 launch cities, five of them in Karachi and three in Lahore, plus 10 branches of Future World School, a brand in the same group. The Roots School System's network page lists seven sites in launch cities, five of them in Rawalpindi (the site's footer reads © 2024, so confirm with the school). Roots IVY's contact page names campuses in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad, but the site shows a 2017 copyright line, so we left it out of the count. Two Roots groups even list the same street: the Roots School System and Roots IVY both give a campus on First Avenue, Sector A, DHA Phase I, Islamabad. In Quetta, Bahawalpur and Sukkur, none of the Roots lists we read shows a campus, while The City School lists at least one in each.

The City School describes a single academic spine. It says its curriculum is derived from the UK national curriculum and carries children from nursery to the Cambridge (CAIE) IGCSE, O Level and A Level exams. Its admissions age chart also shows Matric sections next to O Level in Classes 9 and 10, and several campus listings mention HSSC or FSc. RISC gives its own names to the early stages: an Early Years programme, a Primary Years Programme and a Lower Secondary Programme. After that, students choose IGCSE, O Level or Matric (SSC). RISC's 'Primary Years Programme' should not be mistaken for the International Baccalaureate programme with the same name, because RISC's qualifications page does not describe it as an IB programme. For Classes 11 and 12, RISC lists A Level, Oxford AQA, the LRN Level 3 Diploma in Pre-U Foundation Studies and HSSC streams in FSc Pre-Medical and Pre-Engineering, ICS, ICom and FA.

The exam boards differ as well. RISC names Cambridge as the main awarding body for its O Levels, with Pearson Edexcel where applicable. It says IGCSE is typically completed over two to three years through either Cambridge or Edexcel, and that A Level students usually pick three or four subjects. For Pakistani nationals taking O Level, it makes Maths, English, Urdu, Pakistan Studies and Islamiyat compulsory, alongside three optional subjects. RISC says its SSC and HSSC qualifications are awarded through affiliated BISE boards. The City School's About page mentions only Cambridge, although its website menu also carries Matriculation and HSSC pages, and one Karachi listing, the Gulshan A Boys Campus, mentions Edexcel. A long menu online does not mean every branch teaches every option. Ask the campus which boards and subjects it actually offers for your child's year. Choosing between those exams is covered in /news/igcse-vs-o-levels-pakistan and in /news/o-levels-vs-matric-in-pakistan.

Find out how far each campus goes before you enrol. The City School's directory gives a class range for every campus, and many end early. In Lahore, its Shadman Campus covers playgroup to Class 6, while its Ravi Campus runs up to A Level and Matric; in Peshawar, the Warsak Jr. Campus stops at Class 8. The network's admissions page names 14 cities where A Level is offered, and among the launch cities that list omits Multan, Abbottabad and Sukkur, yet the directory entry for the Multan Campus reads playgroup to A Level and Matric. RISC's campuses page gives addresses and phone numbers but no class ranges. Ask any RISC branch which classes and qualifications it teaches, and where your child would study in Classes 11 and 12.

Neither network's own website publishes a current fee table, but RISC explains more about how it charges. Its admissions page lists a non-refundable registration fee, a non-refundable admission fee, a refundable security fee, tuition payable 'bimonthly', and an annual resource charge paid at admission and then once a year. It adds that tuition is charged on a 12-calendar-month basis and reviewed annually. Extras may include an ID card, an Early Years bag, a school badge, ICT and laboratory charges, and Cambridge, Edexcel or federal board exam fees. It also says scholarships are available at selected campuses and on merit at AS, A Level and HSSC. Ask whether 'bimonthly' means every two months or twice a month, and whether you pay for the summer. The City School says that after you complete the admission form and pay the registration fee you receive a slip setting out the fee structure.

In Islamabad, the regulator ICT-PEIRA publishes the class-wise fees that registered schools file, which allows a rough check. On 1 October 2026 its register held seven entries for The City School. Two had filed for 2026-27, giving Grade I as Rs 33,463 at the E-11/3 campus and Rs 28,428 at the DHA campus on GT Road; the other five had last filed for 2025-26 or earlier. We matched two RISC entries by address: the H-8/4 campus registered as Roots International School & College, and the Richmond Campus opposite DHA Phase II. Both had last filed for 2022-23, with Grade I at Rs 26,342 and Rs 25,433. The Roots School System's DHA Phase I campus had also last filed for 2022-23. Figures filed four years apart cannot be compared fairly. The register does not state whether class fees are monthly, and PEIRA says the schools supply the data and are responsible for any errors. It also lists an 'Exploreville School (Old: Roots International School)' at the G-13/4 service-road address that RISC gives for its Winchester campus and head office, so check which name a campus currently trades under. Treat the register as a source of questions, then get the current written schedule from the campus. A walk-through of the register is in /news/low-fee-schools-in-islamabad.

Budget for books and uniforms as well as tuition. The City School, Roots International and Roots Millennium were among 17 private school systems served show-cause notices by the Competition Commission of Pakistan, according to a Dawn report from November 2025. The commission alleged that the schools forced parents to buy logo-branded notebooks, workbooks and uniforms only from vendors they had approved, and said its inquiry found study packs priced up to 280% above similar items on the open market. These were allegations in a show-cause process, and none of the coverage we read reported a final ruling. Whichever school you choose, ask for the full year's list of books, uniforms and kits with prices, and whether you can buy them elsewhere.

The two admission processes run on different timetables. At The City School, you can register at any point in the year, though registering is no promise of a seat. Applicants for Class I or above take a half-hour paper covering English, Urdu and Mathematics and need 50% to pass; the school then interviews both parents and shares the outcome within a week. Children are placed by their age on 31 July, or on 28 February at campuses whose session starts in March or April. RISC says its campuses admit students from March to August, that registration stays open all year, that annual exams fall in May or June, and that the session begins in August or September. Applicants to its junior and higher classes sit an admission test, and RISC states that its admission decisions are final. Its usual school day is 8:00am to 2:30pm, or 8:00am to 12:30pm for Early Years, though some campuses differ. We did not find a school transport service described on either network's website, so ask the branch and look at /pick-and-drop; SchoolNama's pick-and-drop listings currently cover only Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

So which one fits your child? Plan for the next six or seven years, not just the first. If your family may move between cities, The City School's presence in all 15 launch cities makes a move within the network more likely to be possible, although each campus still controls its own seats and fees. If you want a choice between Cambridge, Edexcel and Oxford AQA, or a Pre-U foundation option after O Level, RISC lists more routes, but only the branch can confirm what it actually teaches. For families set on IB, The City School's page on its Bahria Chapter in Islamabad, last updated in May 2025, says the school is an IB Primary Years Programme candidate pursuing authorisation, a stage that falls short of being an authorised IB World School. On cost, no current like-for-like figures are public, so collect written schedules from the two or three campuses you can realistically reach and compare the whole year, including books, uniforms and transport.

SchoolNama's own listings are a starting point, and both networks are still incomplete in them. Our directory links 12 listings to The City School, all in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and 54 more carry a City School name without being linked yet. For Roots, 25 listings are linked to our Roots International network record and 7 to Roots Millennium. A further 54 contain 'Roots' in the name: 12 appear to be Roots International, 11 Roots Millennium and 9 Roots IVY, 15 are plain 'Roots School' style names whose group is unclear, and 7 look unrelated, such as The Seeds and Roots Montessori. Some of our Roots records also place campuses in different cities from RISC's own list, so rely on each network's list for locations. Profiles such as /schools/roots-international-wellington-campus-islamabad and /schools/the-city-school-pwd-campus-pwd-campus-islamabad are a place to start. City pages such as /islamabad, /rawalpindi, /karachi and /lahore show other schools nearby, /compare puts two campuses side by side, and /tutors can help if a change of board leaves gaps.