Education, equality and inclusive citizenship in Pakistan
Amna Ansari – Pakistan is currently home to three parallel yet starkly unequal systems of education – the dominantly privately owned English medium, the state run vernacular Urdu medium and religious seminaries or Madrassah education systems. This paper demonstrates how socioeconomic class as a set of social relations permeates education provision in Pakistan to promote a passive and exclusionary form of citizenship by resulting in the current three-tier, apartheid-like structure. Establishing the links between education, capabilities and citizenship, the paper develops three evaluative criteria- individuation, socialization and qualification – to apply to key instruments- medium of instruction, curriculum content and styles of teaching and learning- across the three systems of education and show how each produces a distinct cohort of individuals with varying economic, social and political opportunities.
