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From Madrasas to Low-Cost Private Schools: Developing New Education Partnerships
Dr Masooda Bano, University Research Lecturer, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. [email protected]
Providing quality education to all remains a central goal in international development. Education sectors normally take a significant share of the national government spending on the social sector in most countries, and most international development agencies make major financial commitments to supporting education sector reforms. But despite some successful experiences in improving mass literacy through state led efforts— as in case of China and some East Asian economies— and some innovative NGO-led primary education initiatives, the route to fixing the education challenge remains deeply mystifying for development planners in the Ministries of Education and international development agencies alike. Against this continued challenge, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has recently made a major financial investment in supporting new research in education and development with the aim to better understand the underlying political and economic factors that hinder system wide improvement in the education sector.
The need for such investment is clear given the slow progress made towards globally agreed education goals. As the 2013/2014 UNESCO Global Monitoring Report notes, 57 million children are still out of school. Further, the poorest of the poor, and within them the girls, remain the most vulnerable and most difficult to reach. In low-income countries only 37% of adolescents complete lower secondary education, and the rate further drops to 14% for the poorest. In Sub-Saharan African, only 23% of poor girls in rural areas complete primary education. The poor are least able to build pressure on the government and demand improved access to education services. At the same time NGO initiatives often prove unsustainable due to heavy reliance on external development aid. Even if the intervention becomes sustainable at the primary level, facilitating transition of children to middle and secondary schooling remains a major challenge.
While the development agencies remain convinced of the need to support reform of the state schooling system to ensure equitable access to quality education for all, given the enormity of the challenge many agencies are meanwhile mobilizing all other actors who can contribute towards advancing education targets in the near future. Recent research and development practice has identified two such potential actors, which were traditionally seen with skepticism, but today both are being actively considered as partners in education provision to the poor: madrasas (Islamic schools) and the low-cost private schools.
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This essay will capture the latest research and practice that has led to increased engagement with these two actors. In order to understand the potential of forging partnerships with them in providing good quality education to the poorest of the poor, it is important to start by outlining why engagement with them was traditionally seen to be controversial and why that resistance, though not fully removed, has reduced to a level where it has become possible to start experimenting with creating partnership models with both these actors.
Engaging with Madrasas: Why and how?
Madrasas, Islamic schools, have been the centers of Islamic learning for centuries but since September 11 they have acquired a negative connotation due to their alleged support for the idea of jihad (Islamic militancy). The basis of such concerns was that many of the senior leaders of the Taliban, a group associated with rigid mindsets and harboring support for Al-Qaida, were trained in madrasas in the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. But even when such assertions about madrasa-based support for militancy were challenged, there were lingering concerns that madrasas have become an archaic institution due to their exclusive emphasis on teaching of Islamic texts, which were seen to be irrelevant to the modern socio-economic and political needs of the society. These concerns about madrasa education led to increased research on understanding their role in modern Muslim societies. This in turn has led to identification of potential partnership models between state, madrasas and the development agencies to promote basic education for all. As more development agencies engaged with madrasas, primarily with the view to promote counter-militancy initiatives, they also started to recognize within them the potential for imparting basic education for all if they could be provided support with teaching modern subjects. Such partnership initiatives have had their share of critics, as some maintain that engaging with religious institutions will always be problematic. Thus, donors have treaded with great care in considering such options. However, they have been encouraged in contexts where the governments themselves have either had an earlier tradition of developing integrated education programmes with the local madrasas and Islamic schools or were keen to explore such options.
Three countries, Bangladesh, Pakistan and northern Nigeria, the latter two having a major share of the world’s out-of-school children, have experimented in this area. In Bangladesh, there is a well-established tradition of an integrated madrasas system known as the Aliya madrasa system where the state provides support to the madrasa by providing salaries of all the teachers if the madrasa adopts teaching of modern subjects in the curriculum. In Pakistan, a similar initiative was also pursued by the government from 1960s, but never fully pushed. After September 11, faced with increased concerns about alleged militancy in some of Pakistani madrasas, the government accepted external support to try to push the modernization agenda by providing better incentives to madrasas for adopting teaching of modern subjects in their curriculum. And, finally in northern Nigeria, where the majority of the population is Muslim ,the states povide government trained teachers to Islamiyya schools to support teaching of modern subjects along with the Islamic subjects. These northern state governments have been seeking support from many development agencies to identify the best models for integrating teaching of modern subjects into the curriculum of Isamiyya and other Quranic schools, the most orthodox of which is known as Tsangaya schools.
3 The main reasons for this engagement:
1). The main reason for this shift towards engaging Islamic schools as partners in education provision comes from the realization of their large scale. This is particularly visible in northern Nigeria: while there are slightly over 6000 primary and secondary modern state run schools in Kano, the Islamic and Quranic schools are 26,000 in number. The government estimated rate of enrollment in Islamic and Quranic schools is over 80%. Further, this high enrollment rate equally applies to women. Similarly, in Bangladesh, 33% of the secondary school population in the government supported education system is in Aliya madrasas. Thus, till the time when the government is failing to provide education to all, entering into partnership with these Islamic and Quranic schools is being seen as one of the alternative platforms to advance modern education in the interim period.
Partnerships with Islamic schools is seen as a viable step forward given that the madrasas absorb some of the poorest children.. Most recent studies, including those carried out by the author, counter the claim that madrasas only cater to the poorest of the poor who are sent due to lack of other options. Rather, most madrasa students belong to middle income group. Surveys with madrasa students show that normally only one child from each family is dedicated to religious education while the siblings follow other careers, thereby highlighting that there is an element of conscious choice in opting for religious education. Yet, the studies also acknowledge that because madrasas are religious institutions, they also take in many children who are orphans and come from among the poorest of the poor. Thus, though having a mixed population, madrasas in general also provide access to some of the poorest and the most vulnerable child population groups in need of education.
2). While the push toward engaging with the Islamic and Quranic schooling sector has partly come because of the recognition of their potential for expansion of basic education provision, given that they provide an already available infrastructure and student base, the related incentive for such engagement rests in the hope of minimizing chances of radicalization of children in these schools and reducing risk of recruitment for religious militancy. Provision of modern education is expected to provide increased economic opportunities to children in madrasas and Islamic schools, which is expected to increase their income potential and reduce attraction for any kind of deviant activity.
3). The third related argument for engaging with this sector has come from evidence that often in the more conservative Muslim communities, especially in the rural areas, there is much higher willingness among parents to send their daughters to madrasas or Islamic schools as opposed to modern schools. There is evidence of this in Bangladesh where we saw that a female stipend scheme for secondary school girls, which could be availed both in madrasas or other non-religious schools, was more heavily cashed in female madrasas in rural Bangladeshi communities. Similarly, in northern Nigeria, we find that Islamiyya schools, which offer an integrated curriculum, have a higher female ratio (60:40) than those in government or secondary schools where the ratio is reversed.
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more useful by the parents, given that marriage still remains the main route to upward mobility of women. In such a context, Islamic education is seen more useful as it trains women to become good mothers and wives while modern education is seen to have limited use for women for whom there are limited jobs in the market. It is very normal for parents in northern Nigeria to explain the school choice decisions for their children in following ways: “Islamic education builds good moral character (such as truthfulness, respect for parents, and being a responsible member of the society) and thus is essential for all; modern education on the other hand is important for securing a job so it is only useful if the education secured leads to good employment; else it proves to be a waste of time.”
In such a context, where there is a consensus on the need for religious education but the exact benefits of modern education are unclear, providing modern education through religious education platforms can thus be an effective way of overcoming both lethargy and ideological resistance against modern education. Investment in modern education becomes more acceptable when combined with religious education. The technical challenges of provision:
The above points have highlighted why this traditionally ignored sector for the spread of modern education has come in vogue in development and education debates. However, the core issue is how best to integrate the two fields of education. This is a technical question, which needs much experimentation and evidence based research. Across the different countries, the integration models led by the state have focused on providing support to the madrasa for teaching of modern subjects based upon the adoption of a mixed curriculum by the madrasa. The heads of madrasas have been motivated to join in the programme by the state, either by provision of state trained teachers for teaching of modern subjects and some help with teaching material as is the case with integrated Islamiyya schools in Kano, or by the state paying for salaries of all the teachers in madrasas, as is the case in Bangladesh. More limited state efforts such as in Pakistan and India, where the state has offered to pay only the salaries of the modern subject teachers (and not those of the religious subjects), have in general failed to attract a major section of the madrasa leadership to adopt integration. The nature of financial incentives offered thus does influence the level of mobilization of the religious leaders.
However, the technical question posed by the different models of provision of integrated education is which methods yield the most effective learning. Do children following integrated education learn better through government-trained teachers or does recruitment of teachers by the madrasas,yield equally effective teaching of modern subjects? Further, can the government-trained teacher be replaced by a locally identified teacher who is paid less and thus can make the intervention more cost-effective and widely replicable? This last question is important because different donor agencies have in recent years supported programmes which have developed more innovative models for provision of integrated teaching through madrasa platform instead of providing a government teacher. One such intervention in northern Nigeria where the author has been actively involved adopted the core features of non-formal schooling programmes, including recruitment of local teachers who have a 10 grade certificate, and providing intensive teacher training to make them start teaching the primary schools curriculum to the madrasa students. These teachers cover the six-year curriculum in four years, and the intervention has also
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been very popular with the madrasas and the community.
The main advantage of the local community teacher model over assigning a government school-teacher to teaching in the madrasa is that it reduces the potential of a cultural clash. In the community-based model, the children from the madrasa come out to a central community school for certain hours each day to get modern education. This model also overcomes the challenge of poor teacher attendance as the teacher is from the community and can be monitored by the religious leaders and the community. And, finally, these local teachers are paid much less than the government employed teacher. This at times does raise some moral dilemma about minimum pay, but in a context where the education challenge is so dire and tgovernments don’t have the budgets to keep expanding recruitment of teachers on formal permanent contracts, these informal arrangements help provide the children the best solutions in the interim period.
To ensure improved learning of modern subjects, the effectiveness of these alternative modes of teaching modern subjects in the madrasa setting needs to be further studied and tested. In case the provision of government trained teacher does lead to better student performance in the transition exam to junior secondary, then there is a stronger argument for pursuing that strategy. Otherwise, these integration programmes can be more widely replicated by embracing the low-cost, locally trained teacher model. Much more investment needs to be made in research and experimentation over the technical details of running such integrated education models. This relates not just to the issue of the teachers but also to many related technical questions, such as what is the best ratio of modern and religious subjects in the integrated curriculum, how many hours should be devoted to study of different subjects, etc. Future research and practice thus has to focus on trialing new experiments and systematically recording the impact of different interventions in order to identify the best technical solutions to these problems.
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Engaging with the low-cost private schools: Why and how
Traditional development initiatives in the education sector have focused on channeling aid towards fixing the government education system or supporting innovative NGO-led education initiatives. The traditional rationale for investment in the state schooling system rests in education being a basic human right and provision of education being the primary responsibility of a modern state. As noted above, the logic of channeling development assistance entirely towards state run education ministries has been questioned in the context of the slow pace of the reforms. Another development that in recent years has challenged this emphasis is the growing evidence of expansion of private schooling systems in many developing countries. Studies on private schooling in developing countries are showing that not only are private schools expanding in number, but even poor families are opting to send their children to private schools as they perceive them to provide better quality of education than the government run schools. The advancement of this argument has posed a dilemma to development agencies, who by virtue of relying on public taxes, are not geared toward support private business activities. But if these schools can reach poor children and offer better education than the state schools, then the argument for developing some kind of a support system becomes difficult to ignore. It is in this context that a sector that was previously seen to be outside the sphere of
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development intervention is increasingly being considered, though very cautiously, for formation of potential development partnerships in education.
The main reasons for this engagement:
1). Three supporting arguments and one critique have together helped justify the gradual move towards engagement of donor agencies with private schools. The evidence in favor of private schools is that the number of private schools in
developing countries is increasing which indicates a higher demand by parents for this type of education for their children. The evidence on increased number becomes more heartening when the studies start to show that many of these schools charge very low fees and actually cater to the poor. These schools exist in large numbers in not just the urban areas but also the rural areas and city slums. Further, when the studies also show that children in many of these low-cost schools perform better in exams than the neighboring government schools, it becomes difficult to challenge the potential for these schools to be help contribute towards meeting the EFA targets, i.e. provision of quality education to all. .
However, leaving aside the fact that some of these studies and figures are highly contested, what makes the potential of these schools questionable to the critics is the related evidence that children in the low-fee schools perform better than those in neighboring government schools. Studies show the quality of education in the comparative government schools is so poor that performing better than the
government schools means little in terms of actual learning when assessed against internationally agreed learning standards. The supposed potential of these low-fee private schools to educate the poor as verified by their widespread demand and supply when compared to the major quality challenge faced by these schools, has thus led to increased debates on the need to support improved learning outcomes in these
schools. Though moving very cautiously, many developing agencies have started to experiment models for supporting low-fee private schools to improve education provision.
2). Another consideration for this engagement with low-cost schools is also that of their financial feasibility, just as in case of the community-based teacher model of modern education provision in the Islamic schools. Since these schools are low-cost, they can grow rapidly and can ensure provision of mass scale primary education in the contexts where states are refusing or unable to put more money into the education sector. Research shows that the way these schools keep the fee low is by keeping the salaries of the teachers very low. But, just as in case of the community-based teacher model in provision of integrated madrasa education, if the primary consideration is to provide quality education to all in as near a future as possible, the salaries of the teachers become a secondary issue, given that teachers are free to leave if they get better rates in some other school or profession.
The technical challenges of provision:
The above points have highlighted why this traditionally controversial sector for spread of modern education is attracting more attention in the development and education debates, nothwithstanding the state’s fundamental responsibility to provide education for all. However, how best to support this sector poses difficult technical challenges just as in case of the Islamic schools. Further, since these schools are
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profit-making enterprises, research shows there is also the additional challenge that if the quality of education in a school improves through donor support, it is quiet likely to increase its fee, thus moving out of reach of the poorer children. Thus, the puzzle is that if we recognize the potential of the private sector to reach the poor, but we also realize that the quality of schooling in these schools needs major improvement, then can development agencies do something to help induce this change?
A number of interventions are being trialed in this area. The earlier interventions have focused on provision of voucher schemes to parents and children, which can be cashed by the parents at the private school of their choice. This is meant to indirectly motivate the schools to provide better education as the schools now know that there is an increased number of potential customers in their catchment area which they need to attract. Other interventions have focused on improving the quality of teaching in the cost private schools by providing training programmes for teachers of low-cost private schools as well as for the school leadership. Such interventions have been trialed in Pakistan where donors have experimented with engaging with the low-cost private schooling sector in the last ten years.
On the other hand, a more recent initiative by a major development agency is trialing a private school’s support initiative in Lagos, Nigeria, by focusing not on these traditional interventions to support the low-fee schools but by drawing on the Making Market Work for the Poor approach. This is known as the M4P approach in development, which is increasingly arguing for fixing the market failures, instead of trying to fix the government or civil society failures, to ensure provision of core development targets. When applied to the education sector, this approach means not subsiding or providing support directly to the private schools, but trying to fix the barriers which stop the low-fee schools from improving the quality of education. Thus, if low access to finance, low provision of teacher training, or unfriendly government policies are seen as potential barriers to enabling the low-cost private schools from improving quality of education provision, then the focus is on developing interventions which can stimulate the providers of those services to see these low-cost schools as a viable market. Examples of specific interventions include designing programs that make more banks consider offering loans to low-fee charging schools so that they can invest in improved school infrastructure or training of their teachers. This is thus an innovative area of intervention and research where much new work will be done in coming years, providing a rich seam for social entrepreneurs to mine.
• Critical gaps in evidence-based research that need to be addressed to accelerate and deepen the impact of the work entrepreneurs undertake in one or more specific areas of focus
In developing the above summaries of the current status of engagement with two potential partners in the provision of basic education to the poor, this essay has tried to identify how the technical challenges are the real hurdle to advancing these partnerships to meet Education for All (EFA) goals more effectively. While previously the growth of such partnerships was also hampered due to an ideological resistance to these actors within the international development sector, today the primary hindrance is of technical nature. We need to know much more about what
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works, what does not, what works in specific contexts and what can be generalized across different contexts. Thus, this section highlights some of the knowledge gaps in terms of technical solutions in both the areas. These gaps need to be filled through evidence-based research and trialing of new interventions that might help provide superior technical solutions to these challenges than currently available.
Integrating Islamic and modern education: The key knowledge gaps
Which method of teacher provision for the teaching of modern subjects in Islamic schools yields best learning outcomes? Which model is most cost-effective in yielding good education outcomes at minimum cost?
What specific ratio of modern and Islamic subjects should be covered in an integrated curriculum? How long should the total daily teaching hours be to ensure effective learning in both fields?
Does integrated education reduce the overall learning curve due to the child having to take the burden of dual education?
What ratio of children studying in integrated education models transition to junior secondary and secondary education? Do these children opt for more modern or religious subjects as they move up the education system?
How does inclusion of modern education in the Islamic schools change the future life options and aspirations of the students?
Making low-fee schools cater quality education to the poor: The key knowledge gaps
What factors facilitate some low-cost/low education quality schools to gradually evolve into high quality while others fail to make that shift?
What are the best interventions possible to support quality of education provision in low-fee charging private schools? Should the interventions focus on ensuring better access to credit for low-cost schools, support with teacher training, or improving the government regulatory framework?
What are the rates of transition for children enrolled in low-cost primary schools to middle and secondary schools?
As quality of education improves in a low-cost school, how does it impact its fees and the representation of poor children in the school? Can low-cost schools be given incentives to develop scholarships for poor children if they receive support to improve the quality of education?
What kind of taxation regime is most conducive to promoting private schools to trial more innovative models?
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• Research papers that would be particularly relevant to entrepreneurs in the field working to address one or more of the Skoll Foundation’s focus areas;
Integrating Islamic Education
Bano, Masooda (2011) 'Co-Producing with FBOs: Lessons from State-Madrasa Engagement in the Middle East and South Asia', Third World Quarterly 32(7): 1273-89
Bano, Masooda (2010) 'Madrasas as Partners in Education Provision: The South Asian Experience', Development in Practice 20(4&5): 554-66
Bano, Masooda (2009) 'Empowering Women: More Than One Way?', Hagar: Special Issue on Critical Perspectives on Gender and Development 9(1)
Bano, Masooda (2008) 'Engaged yet Disengaged: Islamic Schools and the State in Kano, Nigeria', Religions and Development Research Programme Working Paper 29 Bano, Masooda (2007) 'Allowing for Diversity: State-Madrasa Relations in
Bangladesh', Religions and Development Research Programme Working Paper 13 Bano, Masooda. (2007) 'Contesting Ideologies and Struggle for Authority: State-Madrasa Engagement in Pakistan', Religions and Development Research Programme Working Paper 14
Asadullah, M. N. and Chaudhury, N. (2013)Peaceful coexistence? The role of religious schools and NGOs in the growth of female secondary schooling in Bangladesh. Journal of Development Studies, 49 (2). pp. 223-237. ISSN 1743-9140 doi: 10.1080/00220388.2012.733369 (Special issue on education)
Asadullah, M. N. and Chaudhury, N. (2010)Religious schools, social values, and economic attitudes: evidence from Bangladesh. World Development, 38 (2). pp. 205-217. ISSN 0305-750X doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2009.110.014
Asadullah, M. N. and Chaudhury, N. (2009)Holy alliances: public subsidies, Islamic high schools, and female schooling in Bangladesh. Education Economics, 17 (3). pp. 377-394. ISSN 1469-5782 doi: 10.1080/09645290903142593 (special issue 'Quality Education for all in South Asia')
Potential and challenges of supporting low-cost schools for the poor
Tooley J, Bao Y, Dixon P, Merrifield J. School Choice and Academic Performance: Some Evidence From Developing Countries.Journal of School Choice: International
10 Research and Reform 2011, 5(1), 1-39.
Dixon P, Tooley J. A Case Study of Private Schools in Kibera: An Update.Educational Management, Administration and Leadership 2012, 40(6), 690-706.
Tooley J, Dixon P, Shamsan Y, Schagen I. The relative quality and cost-effectiveness of private and public schools for low-income families: a case study in a developing country.School Effectiveness and School Improvement 2010, 21(2), 117-144.
Tooley J. Private Schools for the Poor.Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research 2005, 5(4), 22-32.
Tooley J, Dixon P. Private Schools Serving the Poor: A study from Delih, India. New Delhi: Centre for Civil Society, 2005.
Khwaja, Asim. “A Dime a Day: The Possibilities and Limits of Private Schooling in Pakistan” (with T. Andrabi, Pomona, and J. Das, DECRG World Bank). Comparative Education Review, Vol. 52, No. 3, August 2008.
Härmä, J. 2011. Lagos Private School Census 2010-2011. ESSPIN. Report No. LG 501.
Härmä, J. 2011. Study of Private Schools in Lagos. ESSPIN. Report No. LG 303. Härmä, J. 2013. Access or quality? Why do families living in slums choose low-cost private schools in Lagos, Nigeria? Oxford Review of Education. Vol. 39, No. 4, 548– 566.
• Academic thought leaders, who are investigating the(se) specific areas; Integrating Islamic Education
Much of the academic research in this area is focused on understanding the traditional Islamic education systems. Scholars who have written quite extensively on madrasa system and the attempts by governments to reform madrasa education include:
Prof Qasim Zaman, Princeton University. Prof Malika Zeghal, Harvard University.
Prof Francis Robinson, University of Royal Holloway.
Academics who are engaging more actively with the debate on modern madrasa reform efforts include Dr. Niaz Asadullah, University of Reading. His work focuses on Bangladesh.
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The most influential figure in this field, though also highly critiqued, is Prof James Tooley, University of Newcastle.
Other researchers actively writing in this field are:
Prof Asim Khwaja, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Joanna Härmä, Research Officer, Global Monitoring Report Office, Paris.
Pauline Dixon, most research has been published in collaboration with James Tooley.
• Methodological challenges that must be addressed to further applied research in the(se) specific areas, and how these might be overcome or mitigated
In both the areas reviewed in this essay, the methodological challenges for advancing further applied research are quite similar. There is need to taking a more analytical approach when designing any new intervention, where all assumptions about the usefulness of a possible intervention have to be clearly spelt out and scientifically tested during the trial period. Being scientific however does not necessarily require a quantitative methodology is all cases; good ethnographic accounts in some cases can provide equally powerful results. Thus, the methodological challenge is to be conscious of the need to test one’s assumptions when designing any intervention and doing good and honest research and impact evaluation to know what worked and what did not, and most critically, what worked, why, and what failed and why.
In terms of actual methods, there is currently much push towards doing more randomized controlled trials to measure the relative effectiveness of the different interventions. This is indeed a welcome development where more can be done. However, excessive emphasis on randomized controlled trials can at times be limiting as it is not always possible to have the resources available to carry out such trials for all the interventions. In such contexts, there is a good rationale for using purposive sampling and ethnographic and observational skills to monitor the impact of an intervention on different groups. Similarly, longitudinal studies, again a bit intensive in terms of resources, are very desirable to monitor the impact of these different schooling interventions on the learning outcomes and long term life opportunities of the children, especially the poor children going through these models.
These approaches might sound demanding to some applied researcher but in reality there is growing opportunities for social entrepreneurs to undertake these applied studies as major development agencies such as DFID are trying to build in budgets for proper research and impact evaluation when funding any innovative intervention. This makes social entrepreneur , as opposed to academics, at times better placed to secure funds for developing such studies by making them part of their interventions. Ideally, social entrepreneurs can consider taking short term intense courses to gain the required methodological skills. But, it is also important for them to consider forming research partnerships with academics. Many academics are open to entering research
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collaborations with practitioners as long as they know that the process of research followed will be rigorous.
• Other challenges facing academic researchers seeking to ensure that their research influences policy and practice in the(se) specific areas.
Education in developing countries, which is the core focus of this essay, is one area where it seems right now, at least in the UK context, there are more opportunities than challenges for academics to engage with policy and practice. The main push for this has come with DFID making a major commitment to investing in education research in the next five years. A number of different models are being adopted by DFID to fund research in this area. One model of funding this research adopted by DFID includes the launching of annual calls for research projects in field of international education, in collaboration with Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The first call under this initiative was launched earlier this year and encourages collaborative research projects between academics and practitioners that will help address basic challenges in the international education sector.
The core challenge for the academics however rests in influencing the governments in the developing countries to shape more effective development policies and interventions. It is here that the social entrepreneurs, being more embedded in their local communities, and having better understanding of the working of the state sector in their countries of focus, can have greater influence and access than academics. Thus, there is definitely great potential for more effective partnerships to emerge between social entrepreneurs and academics working on specific themes of education sector reforms in a given country. While the latter can help the research process, the former can help take the message much further within the local community and the states. Only by bringing the community and the state on board can the long term challenge of provision of quality education to all be resolved.
