Schools And Schooling Practices In Pakistan

Schools are places where culture is transmitted to the new generation. Culture is produced, reproduced and transformed in the process. Therefore, societies pay close attention to schooling experiences of their future generations. In Pakistani schools teaching and learning processes have long been criticized for their poor quality. This book presents research based evidence of 'good practice' in teaching and teacher education which on the one hand challenges the state of despair by offering a ray of hope in improving the quality of school education in Pakistan. On the other hand, these critical accounts of innovative practices, grounded in the reality of schools and classrooms in varied contexts, invite the readers to think about contexts and conditions that may need to be established for scaling up these and similar kind of reform efforts for improving teaching and teacher education practices for school improvement in Pakistan and similar settings elsewhere.

Hope or Despair? asks what promotes and what holds back student learning in Pakistan's government-sponsored primary schools. Using a national sample of schools, students, teachers, and supervisors, it shows how learning is affected by student background, teachers and teaching, school supervision, facilities, and innovation. It is the first book to use achievement tests based on the national curriculum to show influences on learning in the primary schools of an entire developing country. The study also explores why some students complete primary school and others do not. The overall quality of education in Pakistan's government primary schools is low, but student learning rises with the teacher's formal education and with certain teaching practices. Student social class, a strong influence on learning in the United States, makes little difference in Pakistan. Whether the teacher is male or female has no relationship to learning in science, but it does affect achievement in mathematics. Neither supervision nor school facilities are related to achievement. This unique study will be of great interest to those concerned with schooling effectiveness in developing countries as well as to economists, sociologists, and political scientists interested in human resources in those countries.

This Book Aims To Answer A Very Pertinent Question: Is It Possible To Improve The Quality Of School Education In Pakistan And Other Developing Countries? The Book Argues That It Is Possible, And Endevours To Point The Way Forward.

In the mountains of the Northern Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan School and schooling are both symbolic of wider ranging cultural and political battles over morals, modernity, development, gender and the rule of law. Educational Policies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan: Contested Terrain in the Twenty-First Century is about both the normative battles over the purpose of education, as well as about the structural impediments to providing instruction in those remote and challenging locations where it is attempted. The analytical frames in this collection come primarily from the social sciences and comparative education. Contributors examine education, policy, processes and structures in the broader socio-cultural, religious and economic context of three countries sharing somewhat similar colonial and post- colonial legacy and current uprising of extreme religious positions and a drive to social-cohesion.

This edited volume provides a critical account of the theories and policies that have informed work in the field of early childhood and explores how they have operated in practice. Underpinning the theoretical debates are the familiar tensions between global norms and local contexts; increasing inequality alongside economic progress, and the increasing prominence of business and the private sector in delivering aid programs. The authors offer a profound critique on an increasingly important topic and discuss alternative models of policy and practice.