Abstract
This chapter employs ideational institutionalism which gives supremacy to the role of ideas and draws attention to discursive practices and meaning creation in policymaking, to examine the passage of the 2012 Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act of Pakistan. In the context of Pakistan, the ideational traces for the Act go further back than her existence and are found in the colonial past and British constitutional heritage. The legislation, however, was mainly the result of international pressure and the expectations placed upon the government of Pakistan because of its international commitments. The visit of Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to Pakistan and the subsequent visits of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to the United Kingdom together with the demand for visible action on the part of the government of Pakistan to promote the universalisation of education played a pivotal role. The analysis confirms that actors’ orientation to policy issues is not contextually given facts but constructed over many years and undeniably ideational. This analysis further confirms that actors in the policy process are strategic and that they rely on multiple criteria for favouring certain strategies over others. This analysis shows that ideas at the normative level are used in the foreground of policy formulation for justification of proposed policy prescriptions, while ideas at the cognitive level are used in the foreground of policy formulation. The material dimension, interestingly, appears more forcefully at the moment of “last significant controversy”, essentially meaning when a particular piece of legislation has to be passed and, as expected, is in the background of policy formulation in the form of self-interested ideas.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Abbasi, S. (2012, November 20). Universal Children’s day: CRM urges government to accept the UPR recommendations on child rights. The News Tribe.
Aggarwal, D. D. (2002). History and development of education in India: Principles and practice of elementary education in India. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons.
APP. (2012, November 14). Father to be punished for not sending child to school. The News.
BBC News. (2012). Ex-PM Gordon Brown speaks out on Pakistan schools. Accessed October 11, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19911961
Bengali, K. (1999). History of educational policy making and planning in Pakistan. Working Paper Series No 40. Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute.
Besant, A. W. (1917, December 26). The case for India. The presidential address to the Indian National Congress at its thirty-second annual session. London: Pelican Press.
Beitz, C. R. (2009). The idea of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Center for Education and Consciousness. (2013). Right to education leaflet. Accessed October 11, 2017, from http://rtepakistan.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/RTELeaflet-2013.pdf
Chapman, A. R. (2007). Development of indicators for economic, social and cultural rights: The rights to education, participation in cultural life and access to the benefits of science. In Y. Donders & V. Volodin (Eds.), Human rights in education, science and culture: Legal developments and challenges (pp. 111–152). Paris: UNESCO.
Chazournes, L. (2007). Monitoring, supervision and coordination of the standard setting instrument of UNESCO. In A. A. Yusuf (Ed.), Normative action in education, science and culture: Essay in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of UNESCO (pp. 51–72). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
Connor, C. (2008). Recent development: The United States’ second and third periodic report to the United Nations human rights committee. Harvard International Law Journal, 49(2), 509–534.
Drinan, R. F. (2001). The mobilization of shame: A world view of human rights. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dumbleton, P. (1990). A philosophy of education for all? British Journal of Special Education, 17(1), 16–18.
Durrani, N. (2013). Pakistan: Curriculum and the construction of national citizen. In M.-e.-R. Ahmed (Ed.), Education in West Central Asia (pp. 221–239). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
FBS. (2013). Pakistan social and living standard measurement survey. Islamabad: Statistic Division, Government of Pakistan.
Ghumman, K. (2012, November 13). NA adopts bill on free school education. Dawn.
Gilani, S. A. (2013). Ghost Schools in Pakistan. In G. Sweeney, K. Despota, & S. Lindner (Eds.), Global corruption report: Education (pp. 40–44). Abingdon: Routledge.
Goodwin, N. (1996). Governmentality in the Queensland Department of Education: Policies and the management of schools. Discourse, 17(1), 65–74.
Greenberg, G. D., et al. (1973). Case study aggregation and policy theory. New Orleans, LA: University of Michigan, Institute of Public Policy Studies.
HRCP. (2013). State of Human Rights in 2012. Lahore: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Humphrey, J. P. (1976). The international bill of rights: Scope and implementation. William and Mary Law Review, 17(3), 527–541.
Iqbal, M. (2012, November 17). Right to Education Bill 2012: Little more than a pat on the back of parliamentarians. Express Tribune.
Khan, A. H. (1997). Education in Pakistan: Fifty years of neglect. The Pakistan Development Review, 36(4), 647–667.
Khan, T. H. (2012, December 20). President signs the right to free and compulsory education bill. The News.
Memon, M. (2012, July 24). Over 30 million young children out of school. The Express Tribune.
MOE. (1992). Development of education in Pakistan 1990–1992: Country report for the 43rd session of international conference on education. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan.
MOE. (2002). National plan of action on education for all 2001–2015. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan.
MOE. (2008). Education for all: Mid decade assessment. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan.
MOE. (2009). National education policy 2009. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan.
Mujahid-Mukhtar, E. (2011). Situation analysis of the education sector. Islamabad: UNESCO.
Nasir, J. (2012, November 24). Good intentions, bad incentives. The News.
National Education Management Information System. (2013). Pakistan education statistics 2011–12. Islamabad: Ministry of Education, Trainings and Standards in Higher Education.
Olowu, D. (2010). International Law: A textbook for the South Pacific. Washington, DC: CDPublishing.
Panagariya, A., Chakraborty, P., & Rao, M. G. (2014). State level reforms, growth, and development in Indian states. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shackle, S. (2010, January 21). What is our counterterrorism strategy in Pakistan? New Statesman.
Ullah, A. (2013). Right to free and compulsory education in Pakistan after 18th constitutional amendment. South Asian Studies, 28(2), 329–340.
UNESCO. (2000). The Dakar framework for action. Paris: UNESCO.
UNICEF. (2013a). Annual report 2012 for Pakistan. Islamabad: UNICEF Pakistan.
UNICEF. (2013b). All children in schools by 2015: Global initiative on out of school children – Out of school children in the Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh Provinces of Pakistan. Islamabad: UNICEF Pakistan.
Warde, W. F. (1960). John Dewey’s theories of education. International Socialist Review, 21(1), 5–8.
Wazir, K. H. (2017, August 22). Right to free and compulsory education bill awaits implementation. Pakistan Today.
Web Desk. (2012, November 9). November 10 to be celebrated as Malala Day. The Express Tribune.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Butt, A.I. (2019). Ideational Leadership and Legislation: The Right to Free and Compulsory Education in Pakistan. In: Grimm, H.M. (eds) Public Policy Research in the Global South. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06061-9_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06061-9_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-06060-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-06061-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)