Women’s education activist Malala Yousafzai is heading to Oxford

18 Aug 2017

Malala Yousafzai, once shot in the head by the Taliban for fighting for women’s education, has earned a spot in one of Britain’s most elite schools – Oxford University.

On Thursday, the gutsy Pakistani youth and world’s youngest Nobel laureate took to social media to express elation at her acceptance to the prestigious university, The New York Times reported.

“So excited to go to Oxford!! Well done to all A-level students — the hardest year. Best wishes for life ahead!” she said on Twitter. A-levels are final year exams for school students.

According to the NYT, Malala had earlier received a conditional offer from Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall, contingent on the results of her exams. Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s first female prime minister, is also an alma matter of Lady Margaret Hall since the 1970s.

So excited to go to Oxford!! Well done to all A-level students – the hardest year. Best wishes for life ahead! pic.twitter.com/miIwK6fNSf

— Malala (@Malala) August 17, 2017

Malala said she will be studying philosophy, politics and economics, or PPE, which UK daily The Guardian has dubbed “the Oxford degree that runs Britain.”

She joined thousands of other students in Britain in discovering where they will go to university after getting their final school results.

Others to have studied the same course at Oxford, also one of the world’s top universities, include former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Malala shot to prominence when a Taliban gunman shot her in the head in 2012, after she was targeted for her campaign against efforts by the regime to deny women education in Pakistan.

After recovering, she attended school in England and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Early figures showed a fall in the number of places allocated by universities, although the proportion of students scoring top grades rose.

University admissions service UCAS said on its website the decrease in the number of university acceptances had been driven by a fall in acceptances from older students and fewer students from the European Union.

UCAS said 416,310 people had been accepted to degree courses on A-level results day, down two percent compared to 2016. But over 1 in 4 of the grades was an A or A*, the best ratings, up 0.5 percentage points on last year.

Additional reporting by Reuters