Abstract

HALAI, Anjum  and  DURRANI, Naureen. Teacher governance factors and social cohesion: insights from Pakistan. Educ. as change [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.3, pp.57-75. ISSN 1947-9417.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1947-9417/2016/1361.

This paper explores teacher governance factors, particularly recruitment and deployment of teachers, in relation to inequalities and social cohesion. Pakistan introduced major reforms in education in the post 9/11 context of escalating conflict. These include a merit and needs-based policy on teacher recruitment to eliminate corruption in recruitment and improve equity on the basis of gender, language, ethnicity, religion, and special needs. A 4Rs framework of redistribution, recognition, representation and reconciliation was employed to analyse data gathered from: interviews with teacher educators, policy makers and development partners, and focus group discussions with and questionnaires completed by pre- and in-service teachers. The study concluded that teacher recruitment was driven by concerns of quality with weakly implemented largely quantitative measures of inclusion. Socio-politically grounded measures would be required for a diverse teaching force. Alongside, policies and procedures for the transfer of teachers would need to be streamlined so that teachers deployed to schools in marginalised areas serve there for a specified period of time.

Keywords : teacher recruitment; teacher deployment; social cohesion; conflict.

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