Regulation and facilitation of private schools on December 25, 2011Some eight million children now go to private schools, about 55,000 of them, across Pakistan. Where a few thousand of these schools are elite, high fee schools, and a few thousand more are run by NGOs, most are of the low fee for-profit type. They are now spread across the country and this has not […]
What dialogue? Interacting with politicians on November 26, 2011Over the last three months, I have been invited to — as a listener or as a speaker — a number of workshops, seminars, dialogues, discussions, conferences and roundtables in Islamabad and Lahore where academics, journalists, civil society representatives, politicians, bureaucrats and citizens have been in attendance. When I look back on these gatherings, a […]
Examining for what? on August 8, 2011The Society for Advancement of Education (SAHE) recently held a seminar in Islamabad to present and discuss the findings of a study that it has conducted on the Punjab Examination Commission (PEC). PEC conducts grade 5 and 8 examinations across the province of Punjab for all school-going children in these grades, irrespective of whether they […]
Public demand for education reform on July 26, 2011In a recent dialogue on education reform in Pakistan, organised by the Open Society Foundation (OSF), Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) and South Asia Initiative (SAI) of Harvard University at Harvard, where 30 odd politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, academics, and representatives of donors got together to discuss issues in education reform in Pakistan, a […]