Re-imagining the School of Education of Tomorrow

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

Demand for quality education is increasing dramatically across the developing world. But the response by schools of education and policy makers has not fully met the challenge as millions of young men and women enter the labor force every year woefully unprepared to participate meaningfully in the global economy and society.

The proposed panel will “re-imagine the school of education of tomorrow” in the context of a new graduate school of education planned in Pakistan. The panelists will discuss different aspects of how to conceptualize and operationalize a school that follows international best practice in teaching and research but organically arises out of a developing country context, in particular the changing landscape of education of South Asia.

The session will be interactive within the panelists but will also involve the audience (many of whom are invited to attend the session) in a real time feedback on specific experiences in reacting to the findings of the panelists. This is a innovative model of design of a school that brings in education experts and academics from outside into the planning of a school of education right from the beginning.

The first panelist will present empirical research using both secondary and primary data on the changing context of education in Pakistan. He will focus on the rise of women’s enrollment at the higher education levels (exceeding men now) and increasing women’s achievement in higher secondary school board examinations. He will also document the rise of private universities with a majority of female students as well as new data on rise of rural low cost private schools.

A distinctive innovation under study is a collaborative learning model based on a structure of partnerships with policymaking and practitioners. The panelist will present results from a series of dialogues with policy making institutions included Directorates of Staff Development that train all government schools teachers, provincial text book boards, the National Testing Service that recruits government teachers and the provincial department of education units responsible for devolving services to the local level. Non profits I the dialogue included leading education providing NGOs such as The Citizens Foundation and a 100 school project that will allow graduates to get hands on experience in schools serving the poorest of the poor.

The second panelist will also focus on and lessons learned and comparisons and contrasts from dialogue and conversations with other schools of education in the region particularly the Azim Premji University in India.

The third panelist will provide context on provision of education services in areas riven with conflict and in crisis under the broad context of education in emergencies. The third panelist will also talk about the possible role of international collaboration and interdisciplinary models of education that take advantage of resources that exist in large universities with schools of education in the developed world.

The first panelist will act as a chair of the session. The presentations will be followed by a discussion among the panelists and then opened up to the broader audience.

Sub Unit

• SIG: South Asia

Presenters

• Tahir Andrabi, Pomona College

• Mariam Chughtai, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

• Dana Burde, New York University