This edited volume focuses on the impact of education among different social groups in different geographical areas of South Asia. The chapters illustrate the effects of formal education on castes ranging from Dalits to Brahmins, Buddhists, and Christians, even as they consider a range of topics such as the relevance of practical knowledge prior to formal teaching, the personal educational experiences of young women, missionary education, curriculum, and the challenges and benefits of Information Technology. The geographical areas range from Sri Lanka and Nepal to various Indian states, including Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Maharastra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

This book analyzes the performance of South Asian educational systems and identifies the causes and correlates of student learning outcomes. Drawing on successful initiatives both in the region and elsewhere in the world, it offers an insightful approach to setting priorities for enhancing the quality of school education in South Asia.

This handbook is an important reference work in understanding education systems in the South Asia region, their development trajectory, challenges and potential. The handbook includes the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries for discussion---Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka---while also considering countries such as Myanmar and the Maldives that have considerable shared history in the region. Such a comparative perspective is largely absent within the literature given the present paucity of intra-regional interaction. South Asian education systems are viewed primarily through a development lens in terms of inequalities, challenges and responses. However, the development of modern institutions of education and the challenges that it faces requires cultural and historical understanding of indigenous traditions as well as indigenous modern thinkers and education movements. Therefore, this encompassing referenc e work covers indigenous education traditions, formal education systems, including school and preschool education, higher and professional education, education financing systems and structures, teacher education systems, addressing huge linguistic and other diversities, and marginalization within the formal education system, and pedagogy and curricula. All the countries in this region have their own unique geographical, cultural, economic and political character and histories of interest and significance, and have responded to common issues such as overcoming the colonial legacy, language diversity, or girls’ education, or minority rights in education, in uniquely different ways. The sections therefore include country-specific perspectives as far as possible to highlight these issues. Internationally renowned specialists of South Asian education systems have contributed to this important reference work, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and students of education interested in South Asia.

Spanning scholarly contributions from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, this edited volume seeks to capture and elucidate the distinct challenges, approaches and possible solutions associated with interpreting, adapting and applying language-in-education policies in a range of linguistically complex teaching and learning environments across South Asia. Centring on-the-ground perspectives of scholars, practitioners, pupils, parents and the larger community, the volume offers new insights into one of the most complex, populous, and diverse multilingual educational contexts in the world. Language-in-education policies and practices within this setting represent particularly high stakes issues, playing a pivotal role in determining access to literacy, thereby forming a critical pivot in the reproduction of educational inequality. The broad aim of the collection is thus to highlight the pedagogical, practical, ideological and identity-related implications arising from current language-in-education policies in this region, with the aim of illustrating how systemic inequality is intertwined with such policies and their associated interpretations. Aimed at both academics and practitioners - whether researchers and students in the fields of education, linguistics, sociology, anthropology or South Asian studies, on the one hand, or language policy advisors, curriculum developers, teacher educators, teachers, and members of funding bodies, aid providers or NGOs, on the other - it is anticipated that the accounts in this volume will offer their readership opportunities to consider their wider implications and applications across other rich multilingual settings – be these local, regional, national or global.

Education in the Global South faces several key interrelated challenges, for which Open Educational Resources (OER) are seen to be part of the solution. These challenges include: unequal access to education; variable quality of educational resources, teaching, and student performance; and increasing cost and concern about the sustainability of education. The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project seeks to build on and contribute to the body of research on how OER can help to improve access, enhance quality and reduce the cost of education in the Global South. This volume examines aspects of educator and student adoption of OER and engagement in Open Educational Practices (OEP) in secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher professional development in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The ROER4D studies and syntheses presented here aim to help inform Open Education advocacy, policy, practice and research in developing countries.

This book examines medium of instruction in education and studies its social, economic, and political significance in the lives of people living in South Asia. It provides insight into the meaning of medium and what makes it so important to identity, aspiration, and inequality. It questions the ideologized associations between education and social and spatial mobility and discusses the gender- and class-based marginalization that comes with vernacular-medium education. The volume also considers how policy measures, such as the Right to Education (RTE) Act in India, have failed to address the inequalities brought by medium in schools, and investigates questions on language access, inclusion, and rights. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews, the book will be indispensable for students and scholars of anthropology, education studies, sociolinguistics, sociology, and South Asian studies. It will also appeal to those interested in language and education in South Asia, especially the role of language in the reproduction of inequality.

In South Asia, English is the major link language for people from diverse linguistic backgrounds. With globalisation and the subsequent rise in the demand of English, almost all South Asian countries are in the process of introducing English at the early school level. This widens the scope of investigating into the national policies regarding English and probing the status of English language in relation to pedagogy in the countries of the South Asian region. "English Language Education in South Asia" provides a strong foundation for scholarly work on ELE in South Asia. The volume contains compilation of scholarly and investigative essays, especially written for this volume, by some of the most prominent and emerging scholars of English language education in South Asia. The chapters provide up-to-date information on the politics, policy, theory and practice of ELE in seven countries of South Asia - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The volume, divided into three sections - Policy, Pedagogy and Politics of Pedagogy - investigates how the socio-economic, local and global language politics shape the ELE in South Asia. It also addresses the theoretical as well as practical issues of classroom procedures, teacher preparation programmes, resource management, examinations, educational constraints and limitations.

This open access book offers pioneering insights and practical methods for promoting diversity and inclusion in higher education classrooms and curricula. It highlights the growing importance of international education programs in Asia and the value of understanding student diversity in a changing, evermore interconnected world. The book explores diversity across physical, psychological and cogitative traits, socio-economic backgrounds, value systems, traditions and emerging identities, as well as diverse expectations around teaching, grading, and assessment. Chapters detail significant trends in active learning pedagogy, writing programs, language acquisition, and implications for teaching in the liberal arts, adult learners, girls and women, and Confucian heritage communities. A quality, relevant, 21st Century education should address multifaceted and intersecting forms of diversity to equip students for deep life-long learning inside and outside the classroom. This timely volume provides a unique toolkit for educators, policy-makers, and professional development experts.

Countries that have sustained rapid growth over decades have typically had a strong public commitment to expanding education as well as to improving learning outcomes. South Asian countries have made considerable progress in expanding access to primary and secondary schooling, with countries having achieved near-universal enrollment of the primary-school-age cohort (ages 6†“11), except for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Secondary enrollment shows an upward trend as well. Beyond school, many more people have access to skilling opportunities and higher education today. Although governments have consistently pursued policies to expand access, a prominent feature of the region has been the role played by nonstate actors—private nonprofit and forprofit entities—in expanding access at every level of education. Though learning levels remain low, countries in the region have shown a strong commitment to improving learning. All countries in South Asia have taken the first step, which is to assess learning outcomes regularly. Since 2010, there has been a rapid increase in the number of large-scale student learning assessments conducted in the region. But to use the findings of these assessments to improve schooling, countries must build their capacity to design assessments and analyze and use findings to inform policy.