Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Prize winning activist who survived an attempted murder by a Taliban gunman, has revealed that she intends to study at a British university.
She’s the woman who marked her 16th birthday with an address from UN headquarters, has been lauded as ‘an icon of courage and hope’ and is known around the world just by her first name.
At 14-years-old, she was shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban about the right of girls to be educated. Now, she’s preparing to attend university.
Malala told head teachers at the Association of School and College Lecturers annual conference on Saturday:
I’m in Year 13 and I have my A Level exams coming and I have received a conditional offer which is three As, that is my focus right now.
I have applied to study PPE so for the next three years I will be studying that.
Malala, who has been living in Birmingham since 2012, where she was treated after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban, did not reveal which college she had applied to, but previously said she had attended an interview at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The standard offer is AAA at the university.
If she achieves the grades for the AAA offer, she is likely to take up a place studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, whose alumni include one of her heroes, former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto who graduated from the college in 1977.
Speaking about her Oxford interview, the 19-year-old said:
It was the hardest interview of my life. I just get scared when I think of the interview.
She also told the conference she will be juggling her studies with running the Malala Fund, an international charity which advocates for all girls to have access to 12 years of education.
We wish her the best of luck.
