Education Policy in Pakistan: National Challenges, Global Commitments

This article explores the main issues facing education policy in Pakistan, a relatively new country, still seeking to find its feet in terms of educating its future generations. The article highlights Pakistan’s intentions reflected in the commitments it makes on the world stage and the challenges of implementation at nation state level. A disparity between these two levels highlights why education in Pakistan remains sporadic and poor quality, against a backdrop of international interest in terms of the ‘war on terror’ and the perceived rising of madrassas and extremism. The article concludes with some practical recommendations of how global commitments could be used to address national challenges by shaping policy and importantly its implementation at ground level. One of these is to focus on educational research, within and by Pakistanis themselves, to understand their own educational needs more fully and consequently be able to construct policy more reflective of national challenges and feed into global commitments.