History

Early in 1989, His Highness the Aga Khan established a task force to determine how the various existing Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) teacher education initiatives might be better articulated and more purposefully related to the development of education in Pakistan and other developing countries.

The task force started out with two major premises:

• "The education of all children in Pakistan depends upon the improvements of the performance and elevation of dignity of teachers."
• "Such an improvement depends in turn upon the creation of a network of teacher development institutes, dispersed throughout Pakistan but linked with a centre of excellence of international quality."

From the work of the task force there emerged a clear set of recommendations. Central to these was that Aga Khan University (AKU) should establish an Institute for Educational Development (IED) dedicated to the improvement of teachers and teacher training, and to the development of educational research. The Institute's ambition would be to reduce the increasing gap in standards of pedagogy and practice between the "developed" and "developing" world.

The report of the task force was submitted to His Highness and he approved its recommendations. In 1990, the Board of Trustees of Aga Khan University met and approved in principle the establishment of Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED)

AKU-IED came into existence in July 1993 and offered its first programme in 1994.