Educational Policies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan

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.  -- Robert Baker, Former Provost, the Aga Khan University
Without romanticizing the realities of local communities in conflicting geo-political situations, this book engages in an insightful discussion around unique educational experiences in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. This is one of the best ethnographic books on education; it is well-written and filled with qualified and diverse scholars who hail from this region or who have spent long periods of time in this part of the world. The contributors’ powerful portrayals and narrations in this book indeed provide optimism and aspirations for empowering girls, women and the underprivileged through education. -- Duishonkul Shamatov, Nazarbayev University