Research and Policy Dialogues on Teacher Education and Decentralisation

Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), with support from the Department for International Development (DFID), UK, is organising a series of five research and policy dialogues on key issues in education. The dialogues, which are being held throughout the country over a period of one year, aim to create awareness about the role and importance of research in policy-making and encourage public, private and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to build research partnerships in education.

The first two dialogues were held on Teacher Education and Decentralisation in Education in April 2002 in Karachi and July 2002 in Islamabad, respectively. At the Teacher Education dialogue, participants included policy-makers from federal, provincial and district levels in the government, researchers, teachers, teacher educators, representatives of NGOs and donors. Various policies and small and large-scale programmes on teacher education were reviewed and concerns were raised regarding the poor implementation of policy statements, lack of quality research and the inaccessibility and irrelevance of local research. The need for research partnerships was also highlighted and a proposal for initiating an association of policy-makers and researchers was submitted.

Imtiaz Gillani (2nd from left), Minister for Education, NWFP; Dr. Gordon MacLeod ( 2nd from right), Director of AKU-IED, during the Research and Policy Dialogue on Decentralisation, in Islamabad in July 2002.

The then Minister for Education, Sindh, Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, applauded AKU-IED for providing a forum for policy-makers, researchers and education practitioners to share their views on teacher education. She urged organisations involved in this field to build the self-esteem of teachers and raise the status of the teaching profession. She underlined the importance and relevance of research for policy-making and said that such dialogues are helpful in increasing the awareness of research and its utilisation. The Minister also emphasised the need for a broad perspective when considering stakeholders in education, so that all sectors of society are involved in policy-making through consultation and research.

The second policy dialogue focused on sharing the experiences of devolution and decentralisation in the education sector from across the country. Once again there was cross-sectoral participation from governmental policy-makers as well as researchers and implementers from both public and private sectors including NGOs. Representatives from the four provinces shared their experiences of the decentralisation process in their respective areas. Key issues, along with challenges, were also identified. These included the advantages and disadvantages of decentralisation and its impact on teacher autonomy without compromising educational excellence. Contributors also discussed what could be done to ensure that decentralisation led to improvement in the access and quality of education available.

A keynote speaker at the second dialogue, Imtiaz Gillani, Minister for Education, North West Frontier Province, referred to the structural changes made recently in his province's education sector to accentuate the impact of decentralisation. These included district level committees which prevented a single individual from usurping full decision-making powers. He concluded that “Although a central mechanism is necessary, things work better decentralised."

Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, who also attended the second dialogue, urged that devolution be viewed as a "sharing of power." She said that "It should be the people who tell the policy-makers what they want, through lessons learnt from community experiences across Pakistan."

Welcoming the participants at the second dialogue, Dr. Gordon Macleod, Director, AKU-IED, said that "The dialogue might not necessarily achieve instant results, but would at least initiate a process of further interaction among researchers and policy-makers." He added that as collaborators, they could "identify questions, find ways of doing research, and work out how those results might be used in the joint development of policies.”

Commenting on the impact of the second dialogue, Dr. Iffat Farah, Head of Research and Policies, AKU-IED, said that in trying to hold such interchanges, "AKU-IED has started a process which not only gives people opportunities for discussions with each other, but also allows researchers, policy-makers and implementers to sit together and think of the contributions they can make." She concluded that "The decentralised system has its challenges but also its opportunities. We need to see how each of us, universities included, can make an input into the process."

Future dialogues are on the themes of: Effective Resource Utilisation Through Public Private Partnership (Quetta, October 2002), Curriculum Reforms and Review (Peshawar, February 2003) and Quality Assurance (Lahore, March 2003).

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