One of the most important features that characterized the holy city of Karbala from the rest of the Iraqi, Arab, and Islamic cities, is the large number of religious scientific schools and its wide spread within its four corners throughout the blessed history of this city.
Al-Mahdia School of Religious Sciences was one of these schools. It was funded and built by Sheikh "Ali bin Shaikh Ja'afar Kashif al-Ghita'a" in 1284 Hijri, 1867 AD, similar to another school he built in the holy city of Najaf, as this school was composed of two floors with accommodation centers for students coming from Islamic brotherly countries, while the most prominent professors of this school were Sheikh Hussein al-Baidhani, Sheikh Mohammed Shams al-Din, Sheikh Ali al-Ithan al-Bahrani, Sheikh Abdul Hamid al-Sa'adi and many others.
This school, like many of its counterparts, was demolished by the former Ba'athist regime in 1991, but the majestic scholars from the family of Kashif al-Ghita'a have once again stood up to reconstruct it, where it's currently under construction (1).
Source
(1) Summary of the religious scientific movement in Karbala: the series of publications of Karbala Center for Studies and Research.
