Educational Policies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan

Dilshad Ashraf is associate professor at the Aga Khan University. Sarfaroz Niyozov is director of Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development. Mir Afzal Tajik is associate professor and associate director at Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development.

• ContentsIntroductionDilshad Ashraf and Alan J. DeYoungChapter 1: Missing pieces: The case of girls’ education in TajikistanChristopher WhitselChapter 2: The militarization of Afghan women’s learning in ‘post-conflict’ Afghanistan Spogmai AkseerChapter 3: Girls education in Afghanistan: What works and whyShama Dossa & Parveen RoyChapter 4: Islamic Education in post-Soviet Tajikistan: A field of contestations Sarfaroz Niyozov, Hakim Elnazarov, and Sultonbek AksakolovChapter 5: Religion and state in Pakistani education with special focus on mountainous regions Jan-e-Alam KhakiChapter 6: Creating social cohesion through schooling in Pakistan’s Swat Valley: One UNICEF approachParveen Roy and Alan DeYoungChapter 7: Building communities by building schools in the rural mountainous regions of PakistanMir Afzal Tajik Chapter 8: Narratives of Schooling during the Tajik Civil War (1992-97)Carole FaucherChapter 9: Schooling and the Problem of Indigenous Cultural Identity in Baltistan Zakir HussainConclusion: Transforming Contested Education Terrains into Opportunities for Hope and PeaceSarfaroz Niyozov & Jan-e-Alam KhakiAbout the Contributors

This work is a distinctive and influential contribution to understanding education—in all its complexity—in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. With a focus on implications for educational and social policy, fundamental questions and issues about access to and purposes of education are raised and discussed. Appropriately, these are framed within broader, sometimes contested and conflicting, political contexts. A major strength of the book is that most of the writers have themselves progressed through the systems being described, and their contributions are grounded in realities. This work takes knowledge of education practices in the region to a new level and provides a baseline of understandings from which policy makers, future researchers and others can build.