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In Pakistan, all children between 5 and 16 years of age have the right to 12 years of school education. The public school system is the main provider of schooling. Pakistan takes explicit account of gender in the provision of schooling,... more
In Pakistan, all children between 5 and 16 years of age have the right to 12 years of school education. The public school system is the main provider of schooling. Pakistan takes explicit account of gender in the provision of schooling, especially in public schools at post-primary levels, with girls’ schools with female teachers and boys’ schools with male teachers. While the policy context has always been supportive of universal school education, there is a significant gap in access, especially for girls at post-primary levels. The private sector has an increasingly large share in education with strong public–private partnership models to enhance access to quality education for the needy. Mostly, the medium of instruction is Urdu in public schools and English in private schools. This chapter describes the school education system in Pakistan and provides insights into issues of access, expansion, and equity in the specific sociocultural and language context of the country
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A B S T R A C T This paper analyses the role of national level reforms in the school curriculum and initial teacher education in gender justice in conflict-affected Pakistan, using a multidisciplinary framework applied to multiple data... more
A B S T R A C T This paper analyses the role of national level reforms in the school curriculum and initial teacher education in gender justice in conflict-affected Pakistan, using a multidisciplinary framework applied to multiple data sets from selected teacher education institutions in Sindh. The school curriculum texts analysed potentially perpetuate gender injustice and foster conflict. While teacher education reforms offer the potential for transformative gender justice, gender remains peripheral in initial teacher education curriculum. Furthermore, institutional practices entrench gendered norms. Lecturers' and teachers' limited understanding of their role and capacity for transformative gender justice pose challenges to education for gender justice, social cohesion and conflict mi-tigation. Informed by our understanding of gender as a social construct, multiple strategies within and beyond education are offered towards transformative gender justice.
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This paper studies an under-researched area – teachers’ role in peacebuilding in conflict-affected contexts – through exploring teacher agency for social cohesion in Pakistan. Insights are sought into teachers’ perspectives on the major... more
This paper studies an under-researched area – teachers’ role in peacebuilding in conflict-affected contexts – through exploring teacher agency for social cohesion in Pakistan. Insights are sought into teachers’ perspectives on the major drivers of conflict in society and the role of education and teachers in social cohesion and mitigating inequities in education. A 4Rs framework of redistribution, recognition, representation and reconciliation was employed to analyse data gathered from: interviews with and classroom observations of teacher educators; focus-group discussions with and a questionnaire completed by pre- and in-service teachers; and analysis of teacher education and school curriculum texts. While teachers expressed a nuanced understanding of the conflict drivers in society and appreciated the significance of education in peacebuilding, they subscribed to assimilationist approaches to social cohesion, which were aligned with curriculum texts and promoted official nation-building agendas. Additionally, teachers saw issues of social cohesion as peripheral to the core academic curriculum. Teachers’ identity was integrally linked to their religious affiliations.