Educational Crisis and Reform

Perspectives from South Asia

Edited by Abbas Rashid and Irfan Muzaffar

The book takes the unique position, that the crises in education faced by different countries of South Asia differ in their nature as well as import.
Valuable for educationists, education policy-makers, literacy data collectors, private, government, and international organizations working towards the promotion of global literacy programs.
Contributions from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal should provide a wide readership.

Educational Crisis and Reform

Perspectives from South Asia

Edited by Abbas Rashid and Irfan Muzaffar

Description

More than a third of out-of-school children of the world live in South Asia. The promise of universal quality education for all children of this region has so far been elusive. The crises in education faced by different countries of the region differ in their nature as well as import. Notwithstanding the differences, there are also some common denominators, such as the burgeoning population and growth of private sector in mass education.

Along with the growing list of problems that South Asian countries must resolve, the pressure for delivering better quality education for all in the region is escalating, in line with the imperatives of a global knowledge economy. But reforming education is not just a technical issue. In order for education reforms to gain momentum, the media, the general populace, and members of the policy-making community need to be more informed about the various dimensions of the educational challenges faced by South Asian societies.

The book is a modest attempt to respond to this need. The contributions in this volume are research-based and strive at providing a deeper understanding of the various dimensions of the education crises as well as responses to them. Among the aims of this book are also to reach out to an audience outside of the academy. While it seeks to provide insights into country-specific initiatives, readers of this volume will also be able to help those concerned with and about education to think more clearly about the challenges of education reform in their own particular context.

Educational Crisis and Reform

Perspectives from South Asia

Edited by Abbas Rashid and Irfan Muzaffar

Note on Contributors
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction-Responding to the Education Deficit: A South Asian Perspective-Abbas Rashid and Irfan Muzaffar
1. India's Education Crisis: The Effects of Neo-liberal Policies on the Poor and the Middle Classes-Marie Lall
2. Improving the Public Sector Schools in Pakistan: Strategies for Introducing Voice into the System-Irfan Muzaffar and Faisal Bari
3. School Management Committees in Pakistan: Mobilizing Communities for Education?-Abbas Rashid and Ayesha A. Awan
4. The Programme on School Improvement: A Participatory Approach to Facilitate School
Improvement as opposed to a Bureaucratic Approach-Wilfred J. Perera
5. The Politics of Citizenship and Difference in Sri Lankan Schools-Birgitte Refslund Sørensen
6. Reforming Gender Inequities in Education: Pakistan's Girls Middle School Stipend-Fareeha Zafar
7. Transforming Public Schools: Impact of the CRI Programme on Child Learning in Pakistan-Muhammad Farooq Naseer, Manasa Patnam,and Reehana R. Raza
8. Situating Multilingual Education in Nepali Context -Sushan Acharya
9. W(h)ither the Teaching Profession in India -Ajay Sharma
10. Teacher Education Continuum: A Case for Continuing Professional Development-Anjum Halai
11. A Conceptual Framework for Measuring the Quality of Pakistan's Higher Education System-Pervez Hoodbhoy
12. The Missing Dimension: Adult Literacy in South Asia-Amita Chudgar and Seher Ahmad
13. Quality, Relevance, and Equity: Negotiating an Educational Development Strategy in Bangladesh-Manzoor Ahmed and James H. Williams
Appendix: Country Profiles
Index

Educational Crisis and Reform

Perspectives from South Asia

Edited by Abbas Rashid and Irfan Muzaffar

Author Information

Edited by Abbas Rashid and Edited by Irfan Muzaffar

Abbas Rashid has been engaged in education policy analysis for many years and is currently the executive director of the Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE), a Lahore-based institution which has been active in the field of education research and advocacy for over 30 years. He is also the convener of the Campaign for Quality Education (CQE). He has a particular interest in the areas of language and learning, privatization of education and education for citizenship, especially in the context of Pakistan. His work on these issues has been published at home and abroad. He also contributes frequently on matters relating to education quality and equity in the media.

Irfan Muzaffar's work has expanded to embrace teacher education, education research, education policy analysis, programme design, and evaluation in a variety of cultural contexts that include Africa, South Asia, and the United States. As a teacher-educator, Irfan has conducted mathematics education courses at the Ali Institute of Education, Lahore, and Michigan State University, USA. His current research interests centre on the history and philosophy of education reforms in general, and citizenship education in Muslim countries in particular. He regularly offers seminars on research methods and connections between research and policy. Irfan's academic contributions on education policy issues related to public-private education debates have been widely published.