Shaping a Nation

The key to transforming a society into what it should be is apparently linked inextricably to education. This book draws the attention of readers to the implications of formal education for the state as a powerful tool that can convert the mindset of the masses. The book is particularly pertinent in view of how education is being used and misused in Pakistan, especially with reference to religious education. The contributors subscribe to a generally positive view of education and support efforts at widening access to formal education both in the richer and poorer parts of the world. They recognise, however, that education comes with consequences. Some, perhaps most, of these may be perceived as beneficial, but some of those consequences are undesirable and can be highly damaging to a particular population or segment of a population. Thus, it is clear that while literacy in Pakistan has slowly but steadily improved, there has been a corresponding level of social fragmentation and dissatisfaction within the country. To illustrate their viewpoints, the contributors examine the impact of General Zia's Islamisation programmes on education in the 1980s. General Zia's government tinkered with education in such profound ways that those programmes continue to shape the scope of what is possible within formal education in Pakistan. Thus, this volume includes discussions of formal religious schools in Pakistan. The authors also examine the wide rift between the various state funded and private schooling opportunities available in Pakistan. State funded education currently lags behind the agreed goals set out by the UN in their Millennium Development Goals and this inadequate provision of state funded education has left a vacuum for other groups to move in and introduce rival pedagogical agendas. All of the contributions in this volume focus on particular aspects of education across Pakistan. Some are ethnographic and anthropological, some historical, some pedagogical, some are clearly influenced by social policy agendas. They seek to identify a number of very real and complex sets of issues involved in providing high quality and mass education across Pakistan. The language of instruction, the source of financing, the nationalist and religious agendas embedded within the curricula, gender role expectations and impositions, the historical legacies which have shaped the educational environment are all touched upon. Nestled in amongst the complex issues are examples of very high quality education and dedicated educationalists who achieve little miracles every day. Thus, this volume portrays a range of views on how education in Pakistan is, what it could be, and perhaps most importantly what it ought to be.

Readership: Graduate, undergraduate students, professors, and researchers.

Stephen Lyon and Iain Edgar

Stephen Lyon is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Durham, England. He had conducted extended fieldwork in Punjab, Pakistan and Fukui, Japan with a particular focus on local models of governance and socialisation. One of his principle areas of interest lay in understanding the processes by which cultural systems inform and shape social institutions and processes. He has written numerous scholarly articles on models of culture and communication and is the author of An Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and Patronage in a Pakistani Village (2004. Edwin Mellen Press).

Iain R. Edgar is a social anthropologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Durham, UK. He completed his Ph.D. on dreamwork groups in the North-East of England in 1995 at the University of Keele, UK. He is the author of Dreamwork, Anthropology and the Caring Professions: A Cultural Approach to Dreamwork, Aldershot: Avebury, 1995, and Guide to Imagework: Imagination-based Research Methods, London: Routledge 2004, as well as many other papers on the subject of dreaming and imagework, and their relation to culture, politics, education and identity.

Publisher's Acknowledgements
General Editor's Introduction
Society, Culture and Politics: Examining Education in Pakistan
Stephen Lyon and Iain R. Edgar
1.: Rural Realities Observed: Future Perspectives and the Right to Education in a Coastal Village in Pakistan
Afke DeGroot
2.: Putting Social Engineering on the Back Burner: Teaching Priorities in Formal Education in Rural Punjab, Pakistan
Stephen Lyon
3.: The Madrasa at Deoband: A Model for Religious Education in Modern India
Barbara Metcalf
4.: Pedagogy, Power and Discourse: Transformation of Islamic Education
Aziz Talbani
5.: Islamic Education and Conflict: Understanding the Madrassahs of Pakistan
Saleem H. Ali
6.: What role for Islam today? The Political Islamisation of Pakistani Society
Marie Lall
7.: . A Tale of Two Communities
Rubina Saigol
8.: Textbooks and the Construction of Militarism in Pakistan
Ayaz Naseem
9.: Ruled by the Pen: Literacy, Orientalism and the Colonial Order in Punjab
Nadeem Omar Tarar
10.: Primary Education Service Delivery in Punjab through Public-Private Partnerships
Uzma Hussain
11.: The Education System in Pakistan with Special Reference to Inequality
Tariq Rahman
Social Justice and Access to Education: A Case Study of Pakistan
Rukhsana Zia
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index