| Popis: |
Two- thirds of Pakistan's primary aged children are enrolled in school and less than one-third complete fifth grade. Decades after the inception of the goal of primary education for all of its children, the state is unable to fulfill its promise of providing access to universal primary education. The failure of the government to provide for a system that ensures equitable opportunities for all of its children has resulted in individuals, for-profit organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) intervening to fill the void. In particular, international donor agencies (IDAs) have come forward to provide financial aid and personnel support for primary education. There is currently a dearth of research on the work of NGO schools in Pakistan, which leaves many unanswered questions about the role of NGO schools. Therefore, in this study, I examine the efficacy of not-for-profit, private schools managed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in providing quality education to primary school children in Pakistan. This study examined schools formed and supported by two NGOs in Pakistan and their impact on providing primary education. A dual case study approach involving a concentrated enquiry into two cases (a rural and an urban school) was used. The study focused on the following research question: How does an NGO school provide education to primary aged school children? Results corroborate previous key-findings that the NGO is the parent body which oversees management, provides training, mobilizes the community and generates the primary funds to run the schools. The study goes further to suggest that NGO leaders provide leverage and establish connections that are important for fund raising and creating opportunities for the schools to expand and work cost-efficiently. The rural NGO had created its own methodology for literacy instruction, which produced adult literate women who were then hired as primary teachers. In addition, it showed that the two schools use: (1) an eclectic approach to teaching which ranged from using public school's curriculum to local, contextually based materials to foreign British-based curriculum; (2) the shift in instructional strategies suggested movement from a behaviorist approach toward integrating constructivist methods of teaching; and (3) the flexibility in curriculum choices poses challenges as well as opportunities for growth for the teachers. These results help to frame future research by linking NGO school's instructional practices to those used in private and public school systems in Pakistan. |
