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Knowledge and Curriculum Landscapesin South Asia

An Introduction

Naureen Durrani and Disha Nawani

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Conceptual Engagements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Curriculum as a Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4The State and the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Curricular Frameworks: Power and Contestations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Frameworks and Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Power and Contestation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Curriculum as (re)productive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Constructing Compliant Subjects: Educational Discourse and Colonial Difference . . . . . . . . 13Producing Student-Citizens Post-Independence: Hegemony and Marginalization . . . . . . . . . 16

Curriculum, Religion and Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Colonial Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Curriculum Developments Post-Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Gender and the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Abstract

This chapter situates current curriculum frameworks in the diverse countrycontexts of South Asia in their colonial and historical roots, interrogatingthe exercise of power through which curricula in the region have been producedand the power of the curriculum in the constitution of identities andsocial relations. A particular focus is on the interplay between modernity

N. Durrani (*)Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstane-mail: [email protected]

D. NawaniSchool of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Indiae-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020P. M. Sarangapani, R. Pappu (eds.), Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia,Global Education Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_53-1

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and religion/tradition and the ongoing tensions and fissures this evoke.The chapter pays close attention to curriculum reforms as a means of producingrules of reason that simultaneously include and exclude.

Keywords

Curriculum · Knowledge · South Asia · Modernity · Colonial · Gender

Introduction

Curriculum landscapes in South Asian (SA) countries are both complex and diverse.To resist the popular tendency of homogenizing the region into one undifferentiatedcategory, it is important to acknowledge the uniqueness of SA countries and theways in which they differ from one another. These diversities stem from the distinctsocio-cultural and political history of each SA country. The region includes fiveformer British colonies – Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.Bhutan, also a part of this region despite not being colonized, has had a history ofconflict with British India and at one time the British colonial regime treated Bhutanas an Indian princely state. Nepal and Afghanistan acted largely as buffer states.While Nepal was a buffer state between British India and Imperial China, Afghan-istan was a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire. These colonialand neo-colonial histories post-independence shape these countries’ education sys-tems, including their curriculum. The SA countries vary enormously in terms oflandmass and population and political stability and governance. Importantly, severalparts of South Asia have witnessed prolonged armed conflicts. While Nepal and SriLanka have faced internal strife, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan have also beensites of militancy and violence linked to wider geopolitical conflicts. Meanwhile, theconflict over forest and mining rights in the tribal regions of central India hascaused considerable violence over recent decades (UNESCOMGIEP 2017). Besidespolitical stability, the economic health of a state has also a significant bearingon curriculum development processes. All of the aforementioned factors producedistinctions concerning curriculum governance, development, and enactment.Nevertheless, there are also some important similarities which influence the schoolcurriculum in these countries.

Given that most countries in the region are erstwhile colonies and have afragmented social fabric, questions of “what is valid knowledge?”, “what getsincluded and what gets excluded from the school curriculum?” and “what are thelinkages between knowledge that gets into the school curriculum and its sociallocation?” become very important to explore. Besides these, the role and agendaof the state in curricular policies, specifically curricular resources, pedagogy, andassessment of student learning, also need to be understood.

The varied chapters in this section attempt to answer some of these questions.This introductory chapter offers a broad discussion of the ways curriculum andknowledge landscapes are contested and seek to understand the contentious nature of

2 N. Durrani and D. Nawani

the curriculum in SA countries. As different contributions and sections in theHandbook have highlighted, the state is not the only provider of education inthe region. There are a host of players, including the for-profit (rangingfrom philanthropic to big corporates) and not-for-profit organizations which offereducation of varied type. Importantly, the region has a long history of religiousschools that often offer segregated education to Muslims, Christians, Buddhists,and Hindu students and learners from other minority religions. Therefore, differentcurricula and textbooks exist within the region which are produced by multiplestate and non-state actors. However, this chapter focuses particularly on the state-sanctioned curricula, and so do the different contributions in the current section.Importantly, in this region, the curriculum remained a notional concept for a longtime, with textbooks used interchangeably with the curriculum.

This chapter highlights how both local and global concerns shape one’s ideasof legitimate school knowledge, and its acquisition, transmission, and distribution.This mapping of themes is however partial and constrained by the limitation of timeand space as well as the topics and countries covered within the section, “Curriculumand Knowledge.” The contributions in this section cover: the significance of thehistory curriculum in the construction of national imaginaries drawing on India,Pakistan and Bangladesh (Durrani et al. 2020); the construction of the “ideal” citizenwithin the civics curriculum in India and Pakistan (Kadiwal and Jain 2020); theconstruction of gender in textbooks in the conflict-affected contexts of Pakistan andSri Lanka (Emerson and Levi 2020); curriculum models and pedagogic perspectivesin India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Sharma 2020); concerns and challenges inassessing student learning in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (Nawaniand Goswami 2020); and mathematics education (Bose 2020).

Our review indicates that the literature is unevenly distributed across the SAregion, with a bulk of the literature published on India, followed by Pakistan. Thismight reflect the relatively bigger population of researchers from or working on thesecountries or greater access to research funding in the two countries. The predomi-nance of India within the literature on curriculum and pedagogy is also noted byWestbrook et al.’s (2013) review. Nevertheless, the professional backgrounds andsocial identifications of the authors, who are Pakistani and Indian academics,respectively, with practitioner experience of the two systems of education are alsoimportant factors in the location and interpretation of the literature. For a greaterinclusion of all SA countries, a targeted attempt has been made to identify literatureon the countries that have not been covered in the remaining chapters in the currentSection – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal. Nevertheless, given themammoth task of mapping the whole of SA in one chapter necessarily precludes arigorous and systematic approach.

This chapter has been organized into 7 sections. The next section “ConceptualEngagements” outlines the conceptual lens through which we have made sense ofthe global curriculum studies literature. The subsequent four sections review theliterature on SA countries around four themes – existing curriculum frameworksin the region, the power through the curriculum is produced, and the contestationsthis evokes; the influence of the curriculum in constituting subjectivities;the historical and contemporary encounters between modernity and religion; and

Knowledge and Curriculum Landscapes in South Asia 3

the intersecting relationship of gender to modernity and tradition in the curriculumdiscourse. The concluding section “Concluding Remarks” offers general reflectionson the field in the context of SA and highlights common dilemmas that countriesneed to tackle.

Conceptual Engagements

The Curriculum as a Concept

It is important to briefly engage with the term “curriculum” at a theoretical level.There are multiple definitions of curriculum ranging from simple/naïve to complex/nuanced and from apolitical to those which reflect its contested and political nature.These definitions reflect the interests and perspectives of particular actors and theirsocial locations – practitioners, researchers, and curriculum developers – andare linked to broader questions about social reality and how we cognize it. Thediscussion of the curriculum offered here is inevitably shaped by the authors’positioning as persons straddling across the researcher and practitioner boundariesand their understandings of the world which draw on postcolonial and post-structuralist insights. The nature of research and the complexity of issues beingaddressed through it in the SA contexts have also shaped the arguments anddiscussion.

A rather comprehensive explanation is offered by Denis Lawton who highlightsthe link between the curriculum and culture and its partial or “selected” nature:

Certain aspects of our way of life, certain kinds of knowledge, certain attitudes and valuesare regarded as so important and their transmission to the next generation is not left to chancein our society but is entrusted to specially-trained professionals (teachers) in elaborate andexpensive institutions (schools) (Lawton 1975, pp. 6–7).

With Michael Young’s (1971) seminal work, Knowledge and Control, the socialunderpinnings underlying curricular policies began to get recognized and questionswere raised about power and control in curricular matters:

How a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits and evaluates the educational knowl-edge it considers to be public, reflects both the distribution of power and principles of socialcontrol (Bernstein 1973, p. 362).

Both the selection of knowledge and its organization came to be questioned. Theschool curriculum is organized into different subject areas or disciplines whichshare unequal status. Furthermore, hierarchies also exist between school knowledgeand everyday knowledge (Bernstein 2000). Strong boundaries between curricularknowledge and the everyday knowledge that pupils bring to school lead to inequal-ities of outcomes, particularly for learners from marginalized backgrounds. Schools


give legitimacy to particular types of knowledge and cultural resources which in turnare related to unequal economic forms (Apple 1979).

Students’ opportunities for learning in school involve the selection of “an objectof study, how it is presented, and the exclusion of other objects” (Cherryholmes1987, p. 297). The latter is referred to as the “null curriculum” (Eisner 2002) and putsa spotlight on the absences or silences in the curriculum. The concept of the hiddencurriculum gradually became useful in understanding the processes of schooling.It refers to, “all the things that are learned in schools other than what is officiallytimetabled . . . include[ing] attitudes, values, notions of ‘normal’ and ‘not normal’”and has far-reaching implications (Chapman 1986, p. 113).

The questions of what is worthwhile knowledge and what is, therefore, worthteaching and what should be excluded from school curriculum, etc., are not apoliticaland innocuous questions but a sharp reflection of the social fabric in which they arelocated. Concerns of the classification of knowledge are directly related to thedivision of social groups in society and their association with a particular knowledgesystem. Related to this is another central concern – the position and role of teachersin committees that frame curricular decisions or write textbooks. In contexts wherethe curricular decisions are centrally framed and prescribed, as is the case in SA,teachers are rarely engaged in such decisions. While it is the socially dominantmembers in a country which often make such decisions, in contexts of colonialitysuch decisions were made by the colonizing elites resulting in legitimizing thesuperiority of knowledges “imported” into the colonies and belittling the localknowledge. For example, curricular decisions in India under the British were largelydetermined by the latter, resulting in establishing the superiority of science in theschool curriculum (Kumar 2009; Naik 1979). The hegemony of science came at thecost of complete neglect of skills and knowledges required to pursue Indian craftsand manage everyday productive activities. The exclusion of knowledge of the“oppressed groups of Indian society, namely artisans, peasants, and cleaners” helpedsustain the “prevailing hierarchy of the different monopolies of knowledge in our[Indian] caste society” (Kumar 2009, p. 11) and helped maintain strong boundariesbetween school knowledge and everyday knowledge in the social milieu of India.Furthermore, the British gave quality in education a new dimension by linking thepursuit of school knowledge, particularly science, with “utilitarian ends (like gettinga job under government) and for improving life on earth” (Naik 1979, p. 170). Incontrast, both Hindu and Muslim groups earlier viewed deep understanding ofreligious literature and personal conduct which complies with religious standardsas the main criteria of quality in education (Naik 1979).

Another important decision in curricular matters is the issue of language in whichschool knowledge is to be imparted. While Western theorists of curriculum studieshave seldom engaged with this question in depth given their largely monolingualcontext, Bernstein (2004) has explored the impact of class-based differences inlanguage on the educational outcomes of learners belonging to middle andworking-class households in England. In the multilingual context of a largelycolonized South Asia, the question of whose language was selected to teach was,and still is, crucially significant and has had an enduring legacy in SA. The


hegemony of an ex-colonial language, for example, English in SA, or a nationallanguage, for example, Hindi in India, Urdu in Pakistan, Nepali in Nepal, giveslearners with access to the hegemonic language(s) an advantage in education andeconomy and help them maintain their social privilege at the expense of others(Nishioka and Durrani 2019). Because of its hegemonic role, command over Englishas a language is largely equated with education quality (Naik 1979). The close“association between certain forms of knowledge and certain social groups” withinthe school curriculum (Kumar 2009, p. 11), as well as certain linguistic knowledge ishighly significant since it constitutes the image of the educated person, castingcertain knowledges and languages as synonymous to education and marking“other” knowledges/ languages as signifying ignorance.

It is important to recognize, however, that there is no singular or homogenouscurriculum in any country. The curriculum varies with the type of school offeringeducation. The official curriculum is often the key reference point for teachers inmany contexts, specifically in SA countries, “where it is encoded in the officialtextbook and teacher guides, often the sole resource used by teachers” (Westbrooket al. 2013, p. 12). Textbooks, as a primary curricular artifact and “the official arbiterof official knowledge,” are “simultaneously economic, political, and cultural”(Apple 2008, p. 26). Studying the contents and the contexts of textbook productionand distribution helps us understand how the “official knowledge” is linked toinequality in the larger society. The official curriculum is transformed when enactedbecause both “teachers and students interpret, modify and add to the meaning”embodied in the official curriculum (Alexander 2009, p. 16). Additionally, theunderstandings and learning that students acquire are mediated by student agencyand their multiple identifications (their socio-economic status, geographical location,home language, religion, race, caste, age, and gender). The curriculum links theofficially selected (and excluded) educational goals and content with pedagogy andassessment in the classroom/school. Thus, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment areinterrelated and mutually influence one another in the day-to-day classroom inter-action (Bernstein 1973). In particular, high stakes external examinations have anenormous impact on the enacted curriculum and teacher pedagogy (Westbrook et al.2013). Examinations, in particular, combine two aspects of disciplinary power,hierarchical observation, and normalizing judgment, making “it possible to qualify,to classify and to punish” (Foucault 1977, p. 184).

The State and the Curriculum

As stated above, decisions regarding inclusion, exclusion, or under-representation/misrepresentation of communities in education policies and curricular resources arenot naïve or based on epistemic criteria alone but reflect deep-seated social hierar-chies and prejudices. The processes of inclusion and exclusion that are central to thedevelopment of the curriculum also produce “systems of inclusion and exclusion”through the exercise of power (Popkewitz 2000). The systemic exclusion of somesocial groups from the “curricular discourse” leads to the systemic exclusion of their


interests (Cherryholmes 1987). School knowledge and the values, attitudes, norms,and worldviews that underpin it are a product of the social, cultural, political,historical, and material context in which they are produced and are productive ofsocial and economic relations. Although the curriculum is made through processesof inclusion and exclusion, state authority renders it as the “truth” to be reproducedfrom one generation to the next and confers cultural legitimacy on the knowledge ofspecific groups (Young 2009). Gramsci’s (1991) concept of cultural hegemony isuseful here in understanding the ways cultural and political elites maintain theirdomination not primarily by force but through discursive power in persuading thesubordinate groups in the superiority of the dominant group’s values, beliefs, ideas,and knowledges. The way the curriculum is organized, the principles upon which itis built and the knowledge it privileges play a central role in the cultural dominationand ideological consensus achieved by the dominant social, political and economicgroups (Apple 1981). However, this hegemony is achieved not simply by coercionbut by “a continual process of compromise, conflict, and active struggle” (Apple1981, p. 39), as well as “accords and compromises that favor dominant groups”(Kanu 2006, p. 5).

Andy Green’s (1990) seminal work on the “Origin of National Education Sys-tems” in a range of countries in Europe and Asia shows the pivotal role of the state insetting up modern education systems, bringing every single individual into its folds.While education in each context pursued different purposes, differentiated curriculaand schools existed, catering to different sections of society. The universality ofeducation notwithstanding, education did not necessarily address concerns of equityand social justice. In each nation-state, the nature of society had an overwhelminginfluence on the kind of education which was offered – who went where and studiedwhat depended on the social differentiation among people.

Since the late nineteenth century, educational reforms, both in Western andcolonial contexts, were aimed to administer change (Popkewitz 2000). Foucault’s(1991) notion of “governmentality” which refers to efforts aimed at shaping conductthrough calculated means is important to understand the administration of change.Foucault (1991) contended that the impossibility of coercing every individualwithin the state and regulating their actions in minute details necessitated that themodern state governs through other means. These included educating desires andconfiguring habits, aspirations, and beliefs and identifications in ways that ensurethat the “self-governing subjects do as they ought” (Scott 1995, p. 203). The globalphenomenon of modernity that transcended national boundaries and affected bothcolonial and postcolonial contexts conjoined the reform of the state with that ofthe individual such that the production of progress was seen as involving bothinstitutional change and changing “the inner capabilities of the individual so thatthe person acts as a self-responsible and self-motivated citizen” (Popkewitz 2000,p. 158). This latter process, which (Popkewitz 2000, p. 159) terms “governing of thesoul,” has been at the heart of educational reforms since the late nineteenth centuryand the school curriculum and pedagogy are pivotal to “administering the governingof the individual . . . [from] a distance.”


Curricular Frameworks: Power and Contestations

Frameworks and Institutions

It is important to highlight at the outset that most SA countries, perhaps exceptBhutan, offer differentiated curricula to different social groups resulting in educationacting as an active agent of socio-economic reproduction. Furthermore, a broadunderstanding of the term “curriculum,” as discussed in section “ConceptualEngagements,” is rather limited and fairly recent in SA countries (Sarangapani2008). For example, in India, the curriculum was conflated with textbooks andat best with syllabi because school education was controlled by an externalbureaucracy, which determined the syllabus and prescribed textbooks. Given thescarcity of reading materials at home for the vast majority of the learners, textbooksplay a pivotal role in determining what students learn, including identifications,values, attitudes, and worldviews.

Nevertheless, post-independence, all SA countries have developed institutionsand frameworks for a centralized or common curriculum. In India, the NationalCouncil for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), a Central Governmentinstitution, is entrusted with designing curriculum frameworks, syllabus, and stan-dards for India, as well as textbooks used across schools affiliated to the CentralBoard of Secondary Education (CBSE) (Durrani et al. 2020). States have their ownbodies, State Council of Education Research and Technology (SCERT) but areinfluenced by NCERT which enjoys greater prestige and has abundant resources.The first major curriculum development exercise carried out by NCERTwas in 2000under the right-wing government. The curricular document produced reflected astrong Hindutva agenda. A few Indian states prepared suitable textbooks to serve thenational(ist) agenda while the intellectuals and civil society criticized it. In keepingwith the essence of the Yashpal Committee Report (1993), which examined theburden of schooling among children, the NCERT conceptualized the NationalCurriculum Framework (NCF) under a more secular government in 2005. ThisNCF moved away from the saffron concerns and focused on addressing thosecurricular processes and pedagogic experiences which forced children to drop outof school. The NCERT re-designed the syllabus and wrote new textbooks, whichattempted to bridge the gap between sanctified and distant school knowledge and thechild’s home. It reiterated the need to move away from textbooks as the sole sourceof knowledge, de-emphasized rote learning, and linked assessment with children’slearning. While the NCF 2005 was hugely celebrated, it had its fair share ofchallenges, mostly related to teachers, teaching practices, and training. Interestingly,the Left scholars organized a seminar, called Debating Education, and the secularNCF was critiqued for its emphasis on children constructing knowledge, acknowl-edging the importance of local knowledge, moving away from textbooks and givingmore agency to school teachers (Habib 2006). Some persisting challenges limit theimpact of NCF 2005 – inadequate teacher training, influence limited to schoolsaffiliate to CBSE and textbooks still ruling the roost.


In Pakistan, a national Bureau of Curricula and Syllabi and a National TextbookBoard were established in 1967 (MoE Pakistan, Curriculum Wing 1977). Followingthe break-up of Pakistan, the Z. A. Bhutto government reorganized the NationalBureau of Curriculum and Textbooks and Bureaus of Curriculum were establishedin provinces. These reforms were geared towards developing patriotism andnational unity through education (Government of Pakistan 1972). Under the FederalSupervision of Curricula and Textbooks and Maintenance of Standards of EducationAct, 1976, the Curriculum Wing was authorized to reviews all textbooks andreserved the right to amend/delete/reject a part or the whole of any textbook (Durraniand Dunne 2010). After the military took control of Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq, the curriculum was revised to give “education an ideological orientation so thatIslamic ideology permeates the thinking of the younger generation” (MoE 1979,p. 2). In 2006, after a long consultative process involving a range of provincial,national, and international stakeholders, the National Curriculum 2006 wasapproved to promote education quality and cultural pluralism (Halai and Durrani2018, p. 549). The same curriculum is still in place with some modifications, eventhough since 2010 the remit of Provincial Ministries of Education has been widenedto include curriculum development. A stringent textbook review process exercisedby provincial textbook boards ensure the inclusion of state ideologies and theexclusion of alternative perspectives or dissident voices (Durrani et al. 2017). Themost recent curriculum development is currently in the making with the NationalCurriculum Council (NCC), Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Train-ing, under the slogan “One Nation, One Curriculum,” seeking to produce a uniformcurriculum across all public, private and religious (madrassa) schools to promoteequality of opportunity and national unity (The News International 2020). This isseen by many stakeholders as a positive development but only time would tell if sucha curriculum does get developed and implemented.

In Bangladesh, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) functionsas the national curriculum agency responsible for the development of curriculum andinstructional materials for the whole of Bangladesh. During the Third Five-Year Plan(1985–1990), the NCTB focused on revising the primary curriculum andimplemented the revised competency-based curriculum between (1990–1995)(Hossain and Jahan 1998). The secondary school curriculum and textbooks wererevised during 1996–1998. In 2012, Bangladesh revised grades vi-xii curricula andimplemented them across all secondary schools and madrassas within the nationaleducation system (Hossain 2015). The revision of texts to support the ideology of thegovernment in power, like India and Pakistan, is also evident in Bangladesh (Durraniet al. 2020).

Other SA countries have, likewise, constituted centralized agencies forcurriculum development. We first outline curricular development in the islandnation-states of Sri Lanka and the Maldives and then the landlocked states ofNepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. In Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Education and theNational Education Commission deal with all policy-making about the curriculum,while the National Institute of Education (NIE) is entrusted with the developmentand design of the curriculum, as well as preparation of the syllabi, teacher’s guides,


textbooks, and other learning materials (Chandra 2003a). Similarly, Maldives hassuccessfully built a unified education system with a common curriculum (Srivastava2012). The Educational Development Centre (EDC) is entrusted with translating thenational objectives of the education sector into curriculum statements. Upon theadoption of these statements by the Minister of Education as policy, EDC developsnational frameworks for individual subject areas, the syllabi, textbooks, teacher’sguides, and other teaching and learning materials (Chandra 2003b).

The remaining three countries – Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan – have alsoestablished institutions for control over “official” knowledge, although these vary interms of age and maturity. In Nepal, curriculum development is the responsibility ofthe Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) which was created in 1971 andreorganized in 1997. The National Goals of Education must permeate all curriculardocuments and materials. The National Curriculum Development and AssessmentCouncil (NCDAC) is chaired by the Minister of Education who authorizes theNational Curriculum (Rimal 2018). Moving to Bhutan, up until the mid-1980s,schools largely used the Indian curriculum, alongside textbooks and learning mate-rials prescribed for Anglo-Indian Schools. Since then, the pursuit of Bhutanizing theeducation system has led to the development of a national curriculum and curricularmaterials “to develop pride in being Bhutanese . . . a sense of self-discipline andduty; . . . spiritual, cultural and traditional values and so contribute to national andsocial cohesion” (cited in Chandra 2003c, pp. 92–93). The government policy hasbeen to ensure equitable educational opportunities throughout the kingdom. A singleuniform curriculum is offered across all schools to support governments’ effort tointegrate all citizens into mainstream Bhutanese culture and socio-economic life(Chhoeda 2007). More recently, Bhutan has also chalked its own path of develop-ment with Gross National Happiness seen as the aim of development withan emphasis on mindfulness and reflective capacities (UNESCO MGIEP 2017).Turning now to Afghanistan, a country affected by conflict since the late 1970s hasa relatively young institutional framework for curriculum development. Afterthe fall of the Taliban Government in 2001 and the formation of the IslamicTransitional Government in Afghanistan in 2002, the country initiated draftinga new curriculum framework, with the active involvement of international organi-zations, specifically the USAID (Jones 2007). The document titled “CurriculumFramework Afghanistan” was approved by the Afghan Ministry of Education’sCompilation and Translation Department. More recent literature on curriculumdevelopment in Afghanistan is largely patchy, although the “National EducationStrategic Plan 2017-2021” refers to curriculum reform (Ministry of Education of theIslamic Republic of Afghanistan 2016).

Power and Contestation

Curriculum reform remains a priority in all SA countries and is considered integralto the improvement of education. All countries are implementing curriculumreforms in response to the changes taking place at the international, national, and


subnational levels and in many countries, for example, Pakistan (Halai and Durrani2018), Afghanistan (Jones 2007), and Sri Lanka (Cunningham and Ladd 2018).International actors are involved in supporting the reform process financiallyand technically. The main drivers of curriculum reforms include a concern to ensuresustainable national development and economic growth by “equipping pupils withthe basic knowledge and skills needed to be self-sufficient and productive citizens inan increasingly globalized, rapidly changing, uncertain, competitive and highlytechnological economic environment” (Byron 2000, p. 58). However, all nationalcurriculum documents highlight the significance of “perfecting” citizens, the pro-motion of patriotism, national identity and social cohesion, and the inculcation ofnational and religious values (Byron 2000; Durrani and Halai 2018; Jones 2007).These purposes of education, as framed in the curriculum and textbooks, have beenoutlined in detail by contributions to the section “Knowledge and the Curriculum”by Durrani et al. (2020), Kadiwal and Jain (2020), and Sharma (2020). The curric-ulum objectives shift with a change in political power, as discussed earlier, as wellas the perceived needs of the state by national elites or the geopolitical interests ofinternational regimes. Hence, competing interests and ideologies at the local,national, and international level may result in contradictory curriculum objectives.

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a comprehensive review ofcurriculum reforms undertaken in SA. Westbrook et al. (2013) offer a broad reviewof curriculum reforms undertaken in low- and middle-income countries, includingSA countries, and thus, their reflections can be extended to SA countries. They notethat within the literature, “the distinction between curriculum and pedagogy wasoften blurred,” suggesting the close interaction between curriculum and pedagogy inthe context of classrooms (Westbrook et al. 2013, p. 27). The curricular shift “inalmost all cases was to replace content-driven curricula” with a focus on creating“knowledge that could be applied rather than just reproduced and that was relevantto learners” (Westbrook et al. 2013, p. 27). For examples, Pakistan introducedoutcomes-based curricula in 2006, shifting the focus from content to student out-comes and establishing a systematic benchmarking and standard-setting at each levelof schooling (Durrani et al. 2017). Likewise, Sriprakash (2010) offers an in-depthinvestigation of the Nali Kali (joyful learning) reform in Karnataka, India.Westbrook et al. (2013, p. 27) report that even at best curriculum reforms were“no more than partially successful in meeting their goals.” The reasons for thelimited success are numerous but a mismatch between assessment modes andcurricular reforms stand out as well as tensions between the ideals of reforms andthe conditions and cultural contexts of schooling (Sriprakash 2010). The esteemedposition given to impersonal centralized examination systems in the SA region canbe traced to its colonial legacy (Kumar 2009). The written examination provided theBritish with the pivot for the evolution of bureaucratic centralized governance ofeducation, enabling them to establish “uniform standards for promotion, scholar-ships, and employment, and thereby to consolidate government control” (Kumar2009, p. 31). Another impact of the centralized written examination was the relianceon “a curriculum that transcended local or regional specificity,” disconnectinglearners from their social milieu (Kumar 2009, p. 33).


Curriculum reforms and their translation into textbooks, though led by the state,entail compromises and conflicts in the SA context (Durrani et al. 2017; Syeed2018). Furthermore, states which are largely reliant on external funding, such asAfghanistan (Shirazi 2008) and Nepal (Caddell 2007), have to negotiate nationalelite interests with those of donors in matters of curriculum and other educationalarenas. In general, the literature indicates the examination of textbook contents hasreceived greater attention, with only a handful of studies devoted to explorations ofthe context of textbook production and distribution (cf Durrani et al. 2017; Durraniand Halai 2020; Syeed 2018). Since textbooks constitute the central and oftenthe only curricular resource, they are often subjected to analysis (Nawani 2010).Questions relating to textbooks essentially pertain to two concerns – their contentand usage in class. In the context of India, Syeed (2018) highlights the compromisesmade by NCERT officials in the writing of textbooks following the development ofNCF 2005. Syeed (2018, pp. 545–546) notes that while “the NCERT officialsattempted to defend aspects of the official curriculum,” negotiations with a widespectrum of stakeholders – educators, NCERTofficials, bureaucrats and civil societyrepresentatives – who had different interests and backgrounds, involved ceding“some ground on pedagogical or content-related decisions.” Likewise, in the contextof Pakistan, Durrani et al. (2017) noted that the 2006 revision of the nationalcurriculum became a subject of controversy and debate, limiting the scope of thereform and hindering its implementation. Furthermore, Durrani and Halai (2020)claimed that the translation of the curriculum into textbooks is a politically sensitiveissue and provokes fierce and aggressive resistance by some actors, for example,right-wing politicians. In the context of Sri Lanka, Little (2011) draws attention tothe multiple layers of power exercised by a range of actors at national and locallevels. If a commonality of interests among diverse actors at different levels exists,curriculum and other educational reforms are likely to be successfully implemented.However, when “myriad local wills are moving against the ends promoted at thenational level they are, at best neutralizing, and at worst, undermining” (Little 2011,p. 15). In the context of Afghanistan, geopolitical interests, namely those of theSoviet Union and the USA, have marked the curriculum and education as a space fordiscursive and direct attacks (Burde 2014).

There are many stakeholders affected by the curriculum and who affect thecurriculum enactment. Of particular importance is the issue of teacher agency incurriculum development which in the context of SA is rather limited to teaching thetextbook and “sticking” to it (Kumar 2009). Teachers in government-funded schoolsin SA seldom enjoy the freedom to choose textbooks for use in their teaching. Kumar(2009) links the lack of teacher autonomy in India to the British governance ofeducation. He notes that in indigenous Indian education systems, teachers enjoyed ahigh social status and “exercised autonomy in choosing what was worth teachingand in deciding how to teach it” (Kumar 2009, p. 27). The curriculum itself consistedof culturally significant texts and focused on the learning of skills useful for a ruralsetting. Even when teachers “went by conventions” in making curricular decisions,they enjoyed the freedom to do (Kumar 2009). The centralized official controlintroduced by British colonial governance of education eroded teacher’s autonomy,


reducing them to a government servant, responsible for all kinds of sundry choresboth inside and outside the school which had nothing to do with student learning.

Teacher engagement in curricular decisions is pivotal to curriculum enactmentand the successful implementation of any curriculum reforms. A literature reviewsynthesizing over a decade of research on curriculum reforms in low- and middle-income countries reported that the realization of curricular reform depends on thelevel of stakeholder consultation (Westbrook et al. 2013). Poor teacher involvementin curriculum revision results in the reforms “missing a grounding in the realities ofthe classroom,” leaving “teachers professionally disempowered,” and lacking anunderstanding of the reforms’ intentions (Westbrook et al. 2013, p. 27). Within SAcountries, the literature indicates that while recent curriculum reforms, in India(Sarangapani 2008), Nepal (Rimal 2018), and Pakistan (Durrani et al. 2017), havebeen undertaken through stakeholder consultations, including the involvementof schoolteachers, the inclusion of teacher’s voice has been largely tokenistic.Even when formal mechanisms exist for teacher involvement, for example inNepal, nominated teachers rarely attended curriculum development meetings orfelt unable to challenge the curriculum bureaucrats (Rimal 2018). The oftentop-down curriculum reforms thus miss the voices of the most important actor –the teacher – whose “proactive engagement . . . with processes of the curriculumredesign is a necessary condition for its success” (Batra 2006, p. 111).

The strong control that state institutions carry concerning curriculum develop-ment raises another important question – whose knowledge is powerful and to whateffect? This is the question we engage in the next section.

Curriculum as (re)productive?

This section discusses the (re)productive power of the curriculum by illuminating theways the curriculum helped constitute the subject in the diverse contexts of SAacross time. Acknowledging the centrality of the socio-cultural and historical contextin which the curriculum is situated, our analysis begins with the colonial curriculabefore putting a spotlight on contemporary curricula.

Constructing Compliant Subjects: Educational Discourseand Colonial Difference

During the colonial times, the Indian school curriculum both in the elite (Kenwayet al. 2017) and in mainstream schools (Kumar 1989) was developed on the assumedsuperiority of European modernity and Western scientific knowledge. The curricu-lum and textbooks had little relevance or cultural validity (Kumar 1991).The colonial state proclaimed its responsibility to both inculcate a desire for“exact knowledge” among the Indian population and offer them the means forits acquisition (Kumar 1989, p. PE47). This curriculum served to advance colonialinterests by inculcating the superiority of Western scientific traditions, the rationality


of Europeans, and the normalization of the Asiatic mind as “irrational” and“emotional.” Western science was deployed to purge India of its “ignorance.” Inother words, colonial education helped establish the hegemony of the colonizer’ssocial, cultural, and political understandings and institutions including institutions ofknowledge construction and circulation. In Sri Lanka, Jayaweera (1990) similarlyobserves the deployment of colonial school as a key strategy by the British to attaincultural imperialism.

With a focus on elementary level education for the masses, Tschurenev (2019,p. 318) demonstrates that in the early nineteenth century, British, German, andAmerican missionaries, as well as nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations basedin Britain and in the colonial urban centers “set out to expand and reform Indianeducation,” replacing indigenous Indian education with the colonial education. Thistransformation required changing the culture of schooling by replacing “locallygrown forms of pedagogy, learning, and discipline” with “standardized teachingtechnologies in formal institutional settings,” as well as reorganizing school time andschool space (Tschurenev 2019, p. 318). Also, examinations and measuring successframed both student-teacher relationships and teaching-learning arrangements.Secondly, curricular content was changed, with textbooks becoming the “centre ofteaching-learning processes” (Tschurenev 2019, p. 318) and at the heart of “moraltales” through which students were to be brought into the realm of the “civilized”(Sengupta 2011). Standardized curriculum enabled those in control of education todefine worthwhile knowledge and assess, compare, and reward “students’ progressand teachers’ work” (Tschurenev 2019, p. 318).

In India, the colonial education both utilized existing patterns of social stratifica-tion in expanding access and “translated them into further educational inequality”(Tschurenev 2019, p. 319). Although the system of education focused on eliteschools to produce a small elite class “capable of participating in the administrationof the colony,” at the end of nineteenth century, attention shifted towards the“ignorant masses” destined to be educated in the scientific and rational tradition ofthe West (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007, p. 153 and 145, respectively). Likewise, in SriLanka, the British established a dual system of education – fee-paying Englishschools for the Urban elites and “free, ill-equipped, elementary schools in the locallanguages for the majority of the population” (Jayaweera 1990, p. 324).

The massive patronage extended to elite institutions in India, the greater access tohigher education and the English language to elite groups with its associated promiseof upward social mobility (Tschurenev 2019) “deepened divisions between theprivileged and underprivileged as well as between the upper and lower classes,and even castes” (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007, p. 153). The dominant association ofWestern knowledge and competency in English, as well as the dominant associationof school knowledge/qualifications with upward socioeconomic mobility thatemerged in colonial India immensely shapes even now how people in the Indiansub-continent equate the lack of education with “backwardness” (Frenz 2007, p. 94).Colonial education with all its material benefits acted as a marker of difference indifferentiating its beneficiaries from the larger Indian population. Educationbestowed cultural capital in embodied ways as attitudes, modes of thinking, and


literacy in English as well as in objectified ways as certificates, mark sheets, andmedals, “giving the educated man [sic] a rare distinction” (Kumar 1989, p. PE 48).In Sri Lanka, Jayaweera (1990) likewise contends that the dual system of education,one for the urban elite and another for the rural population created cultural cleavagesbetween the two groups and socio-economic disparities at the expense of therural population. In Nepal, which was not formally colonized but was under thepolitical control of Britain, the ruling dynasty, the Ranas encountered Western ideasand institutions through British India. Educational opportunities in Nepal wereavailable to upper-caste Hindu groups with familial proximity to the Ranas, com-pelling other ethnic groups to “enhance their status by adopting the cultural symbolsand traits of those in power” (Caddell 2007, p. 254).

Colonial education in India pitted the colonizer and the native in a binaryopposition in which knowledge and inquiry was a preserve of the colonizer, whileignorance and passivity exclusively belonged to the native (Kumar 1989). Thus,colonial education bestowed upon the colonizer the fatherly responsibility ofsparking among the Indian masses a desire to learn new ways of knowing. Lateron, the Indian nationalist and cultural elites took up this paternalistic responsibility inthe style of colonial administration. They looked up to science for developing theIndians materially, intellectually, and morally (Kumar 1989). For example, theUrban Hindu elite in Calcutta proclaimed themselves as “civilizers” of the Indianmasses and sought to “uplift” the lower classes and castes through public schooling(Sengupta 2011). In other words, colonial education succeeded in producingan Indian elite which was mostly loyal to the Crown but differentiated itselffrom the rest of Indian populations and overtime created its own subaltern.These power relations are reflected in post-independence struggles over knowledgeand representation, as discussed in section “Producing Student-Citizens Post-independence: Hegemony and Marginalization.”

Nevertheless, the enacted curriculum, while consistent with colonial objectives,was “rearticulated into local forms” (Kenway et al. 2017, p. 141). Furthermore,colonial educational discourses in India, like elsewhere, were not “unidirectional orunivocal, leading from the colonialist to the colonized” (Popkewitz 2000, p. 172),diffusing “modern scientific” knowledge from the core to the periphery. Rather,the development of colonial education very much resulted from the “interactionbetween colonialists and the colonized intellectual ‘elite’” (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007,p. 140). The colonial school, particularly at the turn of the twentieth century, was akey site for competing and contesting ideologies, interests, and power (Topdar2010). Indian nationalists both Hindus and Muslims not only used and supportedWestern knowledge in the school curriculum in mobilizing support for independencebut also “targeted the home” as a site for the construction of a politically awareand politicized Indian capable of participating in the independence struggle (Topdar2010; Sengupta 2011). The foregoing discussion highlights the impossibilityof recovering “some non-European ‘voice’ that exists in a pristine state” (Popkewitz2000, p. 173).

The colonial education not only enabled Indians in their struggle for politicalindependence and social transformation but it also had a transformative influence on


some sectors of marginalized groups, even while acting as an agent of perpetuatingsocial divisions and differentiation amongst the Indian population. For example,education enabled the low caste groups to challenge the domination of upper castegroups (Linkenbach-Fuchs 2007). Likewise, even when women received a highlygendered education that primarily targeted them as future wives and mothers, asdiscussed in “Gender and the Curriculum”, many women receiving formal education“made significant contributions to female education” and sought to promote egali-tarian gender relations, challenging both colonial and nationalists discourses thatframed women at a disadvantage to men (Paul 2019).

We take up the tensions inherent in the appropriation of Western scientificknowledge by the Indian elites in the construction of particular collectivities in“Colonial Curriculum” and the gendered implications of nationalist imaginationsin section “Gender and the Curriculum”.

Producing Student-Citizens Post-Independence: Hegemonyand Marginalization

The official knowledge in the curricula of SA countries represents “knowledge of thepowerful,” resulting in normalizing the values, history, culture, and worldview of theelite groups, consolidating their cultural capital and contributing to the exclusion ofthe histories, knowledges, and culture of the marginalized groups. The schoolcurriculum and textbooks have helped construct a monolithic imaginary of thenation based on the dominant groups whether based on religion (e.g., Hindus inIndia and Nepal, Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Buddhism in Sri Lanka),ethnicity, or caste resulting in the marginalization of minority groups and thenormalization of the dominant. Furthermore, the officially sanctioned national imag-inaries are always gendered (Durrani and Halai 2018).

There are several studies in India on textbooks which show how they conductsymbolic violence against certain communities and categories of people. Gender,caste, class, region, and religion are the central pegs around which their analysishinges. People from lower classes are shown as being lazy, superstitious, and proneto temptations of wrong-doing (Scrase 1993). Members of marginalized communi-ties, minorities, etc., are seldom shown as protagonists and caricaturized (Nawani2014). Overtime, textbook analysis has become far more nuanced and sophisticated,recognizing intersectionalities between different identity markers (Bhog et al. 2011).In Pakistan, the “ideal” citizen in the curriculum textbooks is often “proper”Muslimand male. The superimposition of Islam on Pakistani identity “excludes a range ofcitizen groups from the definition of the legitimate/ideal citizen, for example,non-Muslim Pakistanis and Muslims whose practices are viewed as non--mainstream” and women (Durrani and Halai 2018, p. 33).

In Nepal, since the overthrow of the Rana oligarchy in 1950, each change ofgovernment has reinforced “its own vision of the idea of the Nepali nation-state byredefining the relationship between the state, school and ‘the people’” (Caddell2007, p. 252). For example, the creation of a unified Nepali state pursued by


the Panchayat system (1960–1990) entailed a policy of a supposedly “national”schooling that continued to disenfrenchize based on caste and gender and legiti-mized the Panchayat system and the domination of ethnolinguistic minoritiesthrough “restrictive textbooks and curricula” (Carney and Madsen 2009, p. 175).The “Ek Bhasa, Ek Bhesh, Ek Desh (one language, one dress, one nation)” policywas based on the “tight management and control of intra-national ‘difference’,”giving little recognition to ethnic differences and marginalizing minority religiousand ethnolinguistic groups and those from lower castes (Caddell 2007, p. 263).Through “pruned stories” of “Rastiya Itihas” (National History), the Panchayatregime’s textbooks fashioned a collective memory to construct a specific nationalidentity (Onta 1996). While only selected groups of learners had exposure to theseofficially sanctioned textbooks and those exposed to the regime’s textbooks couldextract alternative meanings from those textbooks, the national imaginariesportrayed in the textbooks were “found to be variously compelling across caste,class, gender and locational lines” enabling the regime to produce a significantnumber of “student-citizens” (Onta 1996, p. 232). Durrani et al. (2020; this section)likewise document such processes in the context of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Education as a means of social differentiation as well as fuelling conflict is alsoevident in the case of Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. In Sri Lanka, as mentioned earlier,since colonial times, schools offered a bifurcated curriculum, one to the urban elite inEnglish and another diluted curriculum to the rural population in vernacular lan-guages. Post-independence, the curriculum, and textbooks were seen as pivotal tothe conflict between the majority Sinhalese and the Tamil minority, with textbooksexhibiting bias based on religion, ethnicity, and gender (Perera et al. 2004). InAfghanistan, largely religious education in rural areas and “modern” education inurban areas, as discussed in “Curriculum Developments Post-Independence,” alsoresulted in the production of a very different citizenry, contributing to conflict.

Two additional features continue to produce differentiated learners and citizens.The first is the difference between the enacted curriculum in the private and thegovernment sectors schools and the second is the high stakes examination system.While a systematic comparison of the two school types is beyond the scope ofthis chapter, substantial evidence from SA, except Bhutan, indicates that althoughthe public and government sector schools are internally differentiated, in general, thetwo school types differ concerning the language of instruction, the quality ofhuman resources, learning and learning materials, physical infrastructure, studentpopulation and school governance, contributing to very different educational, eco-nomic and social outcomes, and negatively impacting on the social cohesion of thecountries (Naik 1979; Durrani et al. 2017; UNESCO MGIEP 2017). Across SAtoday, “there is a proliferation of private schools, some domiciled overseas whichclaim to provide quality education understood as forms of curriculum and instructioncapable of transforming children into globally competitive units of production”(UNESCO MGIEP 2017, p. 166). Furthermore, quality education “implies a heavyreliance on imported, decontextualized curricula, teaching materials and pedagogicalapproaches, —as well as English as the medium of instruction” (UNESCO MGIEP


2017, p. 166). Furthermore, private tuition is utilized by those who can purchase it toget an advantage in the race for obtaining higher educational credentials.

In concluding this section, we want to remind that the dividing practices ofexaminations produce and legitimize social hierarchies and subdues the curriculumframeworks sanctioned by the state. As Nawani and Goswami (2020) illustratein a chapter in the current section, socio-cultural and systemic factors frustrateaspirations in the SA region, specifically, public examinations play an importantrole in eliminating a large number of students every year. The region is prone tostrict regimentation and stressful competitiveness. Misalignment between purportedcurriculum reforms and unchanging high stakes examinations is reported as a barrierto teachers’ implementation of new curricula (Westbrook et al. 2013).

Curriculum, Religion and Modernity

The preceding section several times eluded to the encounter between science/modernity and religion/tradition in the curriculum texts. This is not surprisinggiven that mass schooling with a standardized curriculum, pedagogy, and assessmentoriginated in Europe in “modern” times to replace “the religious sense of the soulwith one associated with modernity and its rational, active capabilities of being”(Popkewitz 2000, p. 161). We explore the ways religion and modernity play out inthe curriculum landscapes in SA by situating first their interplay in the colonialcurriculum and then looking at these dynamics in more contemporary times.

Colonial Curriculum

The colonial difference in India, as discussed in section “Constructing CompliantSubjects: Educational Discourse and Colonial Difference,” was established throughknowledge/power. More specifically, the school curriculum incorporated ways ofknowing associated with the West – reason, evidence, logic – to allow the transfer of“modernity” and the skills and competencies needed for the production of the“modern” and “civilized” subjects (Topdar 2010, p. 16). Secular education for eliteIndians was viewed by the colonial administration as a means of planting seeds ofdoubt in the minds of Hindu elites which would ultimately overthrow Hinduism andspread Christianity (Seth 2007, p. 33), exposing the myth that secularism andreligion are necessarily in a binary and antagonistic relationship (Dunne et al.2017). Likewise, English education in Sri Lanka was seen as a means of rescuingthe “backward” and “heathen” races through Christian values and norms of behavior(Jayaweera 1990). However, Western secular education in India rather than being asource of the demise of India’s religions came to be viewed as a source of “irreligionand immorality” among educated Indians who were viewed as being deprived of anexisting moral code without it being replaced by a new one. A solution to this“problem” was found in the introduction of “instruction in religions of India” (Seth2007, p. 40). Following the Government of India Act 1919, and then of 1935,


education departments were transferred to Indian ministers. The provincial govern-ments, largely led by Congress party developed a primary education scheme, calledthe Wardha Scheme which put forth a more nationalistic vision for education butmade no provision for religious education (Sethi 2018), even when such educationwas demanded by both Muslim elites and masses (Oesterheld 2007).

Despite “secular” education or religious neutrality in British India, religion was“already” a part of modern education in both the West and its colonies because of thesustained involvement of missionaries in the development of mass schooling(Sengupta 2011, p. 21). Based on archival sources published in both English andBengali covering missionary, state, and native publications including vernacularschool books, teacher-training manuals, newspapers, stories, and memoirs, Sengupta(2011) demonstrates that the colonial state in India offered the model of missionschool as a norm against which local and indigenous schools had to comparethemselves, resulting in the popularity of modern religious education aimed atthe “masses.” Refuting the widely held belief that modern education secularizedreligious traditions in India, Sengupta (2011) demonstrates that religious communi-ties – Hindus, Muslims, and Christians – deployed modern education and educa-tional reforms as a key resource for both modernizing their religious practices andpreserving their particular traditions. Furthermore, as discussed in section“Constructing Compliant Subjects: Educational Discourse and Colonial Difference,”elite Hindus and Muslims proclaimed the role of the “civilizer,” while maintainingtheir social and class distinction. While the colonial state, the missionaries, andIndian educators differed on the contents of the school curriculum, all favored thedeployment of curricular knowledge in the construction of particular religious andcaste identities (Sengupta 2011). In other words, rather viewing modernity andreligion/tradition as a binary, Indian elites (and the colonial state) selectively drewon both “science” and “religion” to construct particular imaginations of groupidentities – Hindu, Muslim, Christians – to differentiate one another across religiouslines and internally within a religious community. The “volatile mix of identityand schooling” that emerged in colonial India made the curriculum an arena fornegotiating national identity and culture. This remains the case in post-independencecurriculum trajectories, as exemplified by two contributions in this section: Durraniet al. 2020 and Kadiwal and Jain (2020).

Curriculum Developments Post-Independence

Post-independence, curriculum content, processes, and structures appear to seek arange of objectives including national development and modernization, preservationof cultural and moral values often underpinned by religious traditions, and theinculcation of patriotism and the promotion of national identity. This is as true ofthe three independent countries of the Indian subcontinent – India, Pakistan, andBangladesh (see Durrani et al. 2020, this section), as the island nation of Maldives(Srivastava 2011), the conflict-affected Afghanistan (Jones 2007), or Nepal, “a


country in transition between tradition and modernity” (Carney and Madsen 2009,p. 174).

In independent India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh even while religion’s relationshipto national identity is fluid, it remains central in each of the three contexts (Durraniet al. (2020). In India, Wadhwa (2019) contends that like the colonial regime, theIndian state continues to frame minority groups such as Adivasi and other tribalgroups as backward/traditional who need to be brought into the realm of civilizationthrough the deployment of “modern” state education. Balagopalan (2014) links theRight to Education Act (RTE) 2009 in India to global discourses of victimizedchildhoods. Her rich ethnographic study of street children shows the ways RTEhas enabled the Indian developmental state to exercise new forms ofgovernmentality aimed at standardizing the lives of marginal children. In Pakistan,education is tasked to create the “moral citizen” by drawing on religion in ways“reminiscent of the colonial discourse of immoral, uncivilized, and backwardnatives” (Saigol 2007, p. 295). Given that the intersection between religion andnational identity has been documented at length by Durrani et al. (2020), in thissection, we look at the interplay between “religion” and “modernity” in theremaining countries of SA.

In Nepal, the language of science and modernity seeped into the educationaldiscourse with the departure of the Rana dynasty in 1950 (Caddell 2007). The 1956Five Year Plan for Education expressed anxiety that the crystallization of “centuriesof ritualism” has left “the conservative minds least receptive and responsive toscience” Caddell (2007, p. 258). The ruling elite consolidated their political powerthrough the deployment of “modernity,” as the curriculum and textbooks increas-ingly “highlighted the ‘backwardness’ of villages,” marginalizing “ethnic, ruraland non-Hindu groups” and projecting their lifestyles and customs inferior to“high-caste, Kathmandu-living citizens” (Caddell 2007, p. 264). The strong privileg-ing of the “modern” over the “nonmodern,” alongside associating education with“progress” and “development,” tends to legitimize the privileges of the elite groupsand the erosion of minority ethnic traditions, languages, knowledges, and self-pride(Shakya 2020). The discourse of modernity, however, competes with tradition withinthe hidden curriculum that is saturated with religious ethics and beliefs and “cultur-ally sanctioned practices in schools” (Carney and Madsen 2009, p. 176).

A historical analysis of curriculum and educational discourse in Afghanistan alsoshows the centrality of religion. Modernity has co-existed with Islam in the curric-ulum sometimes in a conflictual way and other times “seemingly in peace” (Karlssonand Mansory 2002). Until the nineteenth century, all education in Afghanistan wasanchored in Islam, constituting a study of the Qur’an and mostly limited to the studyof Islamic law and hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him).However, the imperial contests between Britain and Russia in Central Asia inthe nineteenth century initiated a process of transformation in the meanings andpractices of schooling (Shirazi 2008). The modern education reforms initiated byKing Amanullah in the 1920s were largely “tolerated” by religiously conservativeAfghan society. However, when the King intervened in the governance of traditionalIslamic education called madrassa, the conservative mullahs offered a strong


resistance, leading to the ouster of Amanullah (Karlsson and Mansory 2002). Fromthe mid-1930s to 1970, modern education co-existed with madrassa education, withlocal communities managing the later and the government expanding the former,including the expansion of girls’ schools which were largely established in the cities.These modern schools included Islamic subjects in the curriculum (Karlsson andMansory 2002). The modernization of curriculum involved a team of TeachersCollege Columbia University (TCCU) who worked with the Ministry of Educationfor 25 years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Shirazi 2008). Given thestrong overlap between the religious and national identity of the Afghans, the TCCUteam advocated the inclusion of a “modernized” Islam in the curriculum, rather thanexcluding it (Shirazi 2008). Although an overwhelming majority of Afghan citizens(99%) are Muslim, there exist contradictions between ethnic and Islamic practicesas well as competing interpretations of Islamic thought and practice amongstreformists, traditionalists and ultra-conservatives (Amiri 2016). Between 1978–1992 Afghanistan had a Communist government propped up by the Soviet Union.To avoid educational institutions as becoming bedrocks of political resistance, theCommunist government did not interfere with madrassas but used modern schools tostrengthen communism. Jones (2007) notes that Afghan curriculum and textbooksunder the Soviet Union displayed Russification and a strong emphasis on commu-nism and socialism. Not surprisingly, therefore, the displaced Afghan groups duringthat era looked upon the then curricula as “anti-Islam” and “anti-Afghan culture”(Jones 2007, p. 30). During the 1980s, the different Afghan mujahideen based inPakistan received technical and financial assistance in education from the USA andits allies. Between 1984 to 1994, the US Agency for International Development“paid the University of Nebraska US$51 million to develop and design textbooks,which were mostly printed in Pakistan” (Novelli 2017, p. 839). These textbooksdeployed religious imagery to fashion young people identities in ways that weresupportive of mujahideen and the fight against the “godless” communists. A reviewof textbooks based on the curriculum developed after the fall of Taliban reports thatreligious imagery permeates the official knowledge in contemporary Afghanistan(Amiri 2016). The repeated recitation of religious identities in Afghan textbooksimplies that students necessarily “learn the version of Islam through other people’slens” (Amiri 2016, p. 45), which essentializes Muslims and render any Muslimidentities that deviate from the official version as illegible. The tensions between themodern and the religious have made the curriculum in Afghanistan a key site forwars between modernists and religious traditionalists with profound implications forefforts to support conflict mitigation through education (Burde 2014).

Like Afghanistan, the small island-state of Maldives has a predominantly Muslimcitizenry and the relationship of Islam is central in society, education, and thecurriculum. Contemporary schooling in the Maldives is influenced by a semi-formalreligious-based system known as edhuruge, maktab, or madrassa which providedinstruction in religious studies, Dhivehi and Arabic languages, and basic arithmetic(Muna 2014). These schools were managed and financed by local communitieswith adult community members teaching the young ones. Modern schoolingemerged in 1960, with the introduction of English medium schools (Muna 2014).


The contemporary national curriculum simultaneously seeks to create a sense ofbelonging to the Muslim Ummah, as well as the modern imperative of promoting asense of self-reliance in learners so that they can improve their well-being(Mohamed and Ahmed 2000).

In the predominantly Buddhist Bhutan, religion was and remains central toeducation and the curriculum. Monastic schools which offered free of tuitioneducation to all regardless of class and caste were prevalent before the advent ofthe modern school. When modern schooling began in the Royal court in the earlytwentieth century, they were not very popular, forcing the government to coerceparents to send their children to school. Unlike other SA countries, it was children ofparents who were unable to remove the names of their children from the schoolroster due to a lack of political clout who benefitted from modern education. In the1980s, the Central Monastic Body of the Royal Government of Bhutan standardizedthe school curriculum to make it more relevant to local needs and move it away fromthe Indian curriculum (Chhoeda 2007).

The clashes between modernity and tradition necessarily lead to a disconnectbetween school knowledge and everyday knowledge. The emphasis on Westernknowledge and rationalities and the strong insulation between knowledge “dis-pensed” and assessed in school and the one learners bring to school inevitably createa disconnect between the two knowledges. Besides, a vast majority of learnersreceive the curriculum in a language that is often not accessible to them. A lack oflinguistic and cultural capital rewarded in schools results in marginalized learnersfailing to demonstrate successful learning. In Nepal, Caddell (2007, p. 261) notesthat the curriculum texts depict the external as enlightened than the local, resulting“in a rift between local knowledge and ‘scientific’ advice,” implying that a greaterlevel of education makes a person acquainted with the outside world and a lack ofeducation confines a person to the local. In Afghanistan, textbooks revised with thesupport of international actors are equally supporting such disjuncture by attemptingto de-Islamize them (Jones 2007; Vanner et al. 2017). Given the centrality of Islam toeveryday life in Afghanistan, “secular” knowledge in schools contrasts sharply withknowledge learners bring to school (Shirazi 2008). While pedagogical and curricu-lum reform movements have sought to address these postcolonial predicaments(Tschurenev 2019), in Bhutan, attempts at localization of the curriculum madeteachers concerned that students might miss out on international perspectives(Westbrook et al. 2013).

Gender and the Curriculum

The encounters between modernity and tradition, as discussed in “Colonial Curric-ulum”, gets further complicated when gender is brought into the dynamics. Theconstruction of group identities in India through the interplay of religion andmodernity was gendered. The education of Indian women became central to socialand educational reforms, as well as informal education in the domestic sphere(Durrani and Halai 2020) because the British invoked the “oppressed” Indian


woman as a key symbol in its “civilizing” mission, attributing her oppression toIndian religious traditions (Chatterjee 1989). The “domestic slavery” of the Indianwoman was contrasted to the “liberties” enjoyed by the educated British woman(Tschurenev 2019). Nevertheless, the colonial educationalists’ agenda for Indianwomen “was to train wives and mothers” and as a “useful and competent help-meet”to their husbands (Tschurenev 2019, p. 155). Although Indian women were social-ized into their gendered identities informally by the family and their respectivereligious communities, only Christian knowledge was seen as capable of producing“female ‘virtuous conduct’” (Tschurenev 2019, p. 158). The discourse of the rationalmotherhood aimed to target the domestic sphere from which Indian society itselfcould be uplifted. In Sri Lanka, the main purpose of girls’ schooling in missionaryschools was women’s domesticity whether girls attended the same school as boys ora segregated school with a “diluted” curriculum (Jayaweera 1990, p. 329).

While Indian nationalists deployed Western concepts of state and nationalism tofree India from colonial rule, they sought to claim difference from the West bydistinguishing between the outer material and the inner spiritual domain (Chatterjee1989). The West was seen as superior in the material domain because of its scientificknowledge but inferior to the inner spiritual nature of Indian culture. Hence incor-poration in the outer domain was seen desirable, but the inner spiritual core had to beinsulated from Western infiltration, with women tasked specifically to protect theinner core. The Indian “nation was imagined and constituted through maintaining abalance between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’, with ‘modernity’ performed andembodied, predominantly by men, in the material/outer/public world and traditionenacted, predominantly by women, in the domain of the spiritual/inner/home”(Durrani and Halai 2020, pp. 67–68). Indian nationalists, both Hindus (Chatterjee1989) and Muslims (Khoja-Moolji 2018), drew on modernity and religion to “per-fect” their women so that they could simultaneously distinguish their respectivecommunities from Western women and the illiterate/immodest Indian women of thelower class and castes. In other words, religion and modernity were selectivelydeployed both by the colonial state and Indian nationalists and the educationaldiscourse sedimented class, caste, and gender hierarchies, making religion the keymarker through which each Indian community distinguished themselves from otherIndian communities. These intersections and relationships remain central in theeducational discourse post-independence in the Indian subcontinent and morewidely in SA countries.

In India, textbooks position women as being dumb compared to men andmarginalize women’s opinions (Bhog 2002; Nawani 2017). Emerson and Levi(2020; this section) meticulously illustrate the ways textbooks in SA largely consti-tute gendered identities that relegate women to “home” and the domestic sphere withresponsibilities for the reproduction and upbringing of the nation. This put them in asubordinate position to men whose role is to protect the physical boundaries of thenation. Furthermore, the invocation of the “other” in Pakistani textbooks, i.e., HinduIndia, “tend to associate hegemonic masculinity with the protector of the ideologicaland territorial integrity of the Pakistani/Muslim nation in ways that perpetuate


conflict” with profound repercussions for “gender justice, social cohesion andconflict” (Durrani and Halai 2018, p. 33).

Durrani and Halai (2020) trace this tension between the “modern” and “tradition”to colonial education where gender was utilized to legitimize colonial civilizingmissions and the response this generated from nationalist elites. Drawing specificallyon research in Pakistan and literature from other postcolonial contexts, they concludethat while the education of women is highly valued in postcolonial countries, thesymbolic significance of women to national imaginaries demands the production of“idealized” female subjectivities through curriculum discourse which “could incor-porate religious values, rather than being framed by a secular imaginary of themodern” (Durrani and Halai 2020, p. 68). In India, the figure of the marginalizedgirl child is deployed by the state as part of its “disciplining and moralizingpractices” and to obscure the impact of numerous state policies and practices thatdisempower poor women (Balagopalan 2010, p. 306).

The intersection of religion, modernity, and gender in South Asia can be profoundin contexts of conflict. As evidenced by Emerson and Levi’s (2020) study ofPakistan and Sri Lanka, the association of dominant masculinity with the “protec-tion” of the “motherland,” not only put women in a position of dependence andobedience but also make them vulnerable to cultural, structural, and direct violence(Durrani and Halai 2018). In the neocolonial imperial global relations, the associa-tion of modern schooling with the West makes girls’ schools a particular target bymilitants in both Pakistan (Durrani and Halai 2018) and Afghanistan (Novelli 2017).In the context of Afghanistan, the gains made in expanding educational access togirls can be seriously undermined by real or perceived feelings that the curriculum isbecoming lighter on Islamic content on US directives, resulting in schools becoming“sites of political resistance to the US-led occupation” (Shirazi 2008, p. 2009), in thesame way, the Soviet intervention in the curriculum mobilized large-scale opposition(Vanner et al. 2017).

Conclusion

It is not easy to do justice to a topic like “knowledge and the curriculum” in onepaper. To historicize such complex issues in the vast geographical scale of SouthAsia is even harder. Added to this, are three equally important factors, which makethe task daunting – expertise and availability of researchers to write on relevantthemes, existing research literature available in these countries and the scholarshipand the location of its authors from Pakistan and India, respectively. Most impor-tantly, one should not forget that there are huge diversities within the countriesthemselves.

Before summarizing the central ideas of this chapter, let us recapitulate some ofthe central concerns which should perhaps have been addressed here – curricularpolicies/shifts and the social fabric of these societies; the impact of the differentiatedcurriculum for different social categories of people on social cohesion; inter-linkagesbetween curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; and links between the school


curriculum and initial teacher education curriculum. The list is long though notexhaustive. For instance, the language issue is particularly important in this regionbecause of three factors, “the multilingual character of society; the impact of colonialrule; and the limited institutional capacity of the system for managing reform”(UNESCO MGIEP 2017, p. 161), but the issue of language in the curriculum hasnot been addressed in sufficient depth. For these reasons, this chapter may appearskewed with the bulk of its research coming from India and Pakistan.

A few important insights also need to be reiterated. First, irrespective of the stateintentions and heterogeneity and homogeneity of school systems, how curricularresources and pedagogic practices are received by children depends on their sociallocations in the stratified societies. Second, recent policy trends in the region indicatesome positive developments including the centrality of the child; agency, education,and accountability of the teacher; joy in learning; the importance of Information andCommunication Technologies in education; peace education; vocational education;and the need to ensure a non-threatening, democratic atmosphere in schools.

What this chapter did, however, was to map the literature on state-sanctionedcurriculum and school knowledge in SA countries under four main areas. First, theinstitutional frameworks for curriculum development and implementation wereoutlined, alongside questions of power and control over “official knowledge.”Second, the power of the curriculum in constituting subjects and establishingsocial differentiation was explored by drawing on both historical and contemporaryliterature. Third, the intersection of religion/ tradition and modernity within thecurriculum was studied by tracing the contemporary interplay between religionand modernity in its colonial roots and finally the gendered implications of thoseintersections were highlighted.

Curriculum development in SA shows the exercise of power and control by thestate in constituting “idealized” citizens, but the process entails contestations andnegotiations among a range of actors at local, national, and international levels.Global policies continue to perpetuate colonial dominance in South Asia. Theinvolvement of international actors is particularly evident in aid reliant countries,for example, Nepal and countries which involve the geopolitical interests of power-ful countries, for example, the USA in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, inthe quest of nation-making, the curriculum and its popular means of circulation, thetextbook, a range of social groups are either excluded or misrepresented in ways thatstrengthen the privilege of the dominant groups. One strong resource, utilizedboth by the state and foreign actors, is the school textbook, which in most casesis sanctioned by an authorizing body and constitutes the de-facto curriculum.Knowledge bounded in the public domain, that is, the textbooks, can beeasily identified, monitored, controlled, transacted, and tested by both inspectionauthorities and school boards. Textbooks provide the fodder on part of students to belearnt and tested during examinations. The dividing practices of examinations(Foucault 1977) further legitimize inequalities through the garb of meritocracy aswell as militating curriculum reform efforts at changing pedagogic practices andclassroom relations.


The superiority of Western knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as theEnglish language established by the colonial curriculum still hold sway in theimagination of both elites and the masses in independent SA. The couplingof scientific knowledge with “development” both individual and national continuesto devalue indigenous knowledges and vernacular languages. Furthermore, thetensions between modernity and tradition/religion, as well as the Eurocentric natureof colonial knowledge have left the postcolonial nation-states in SA with thedilemma “of how to decolonize school knowledge, without making it irrelevantfor a modern society and the students’ demand for qualifications” that wouldimprove their employability (Tschurenev 2019, p. 321).

The teacher’s role is crucial in helping students synthesize modern knowledgesand worldviews with the traditional in ways that support each epistemology ratherthan creating confusion in learner’s knowledge repertoires. Robles (2016) notesthat some Bhutanese teachers supported such a synthetic fusion of the modernand the traditional, enabling students to simultaneously draw on knowledges andworldviews of the home and the local community, while not rejecting exogenousknowledges and their benefits. In India, teachers identified as innovative were thosewho were critically aware of students’ background knowledge and were committedto the use of progressive pedagogies (Westbrook et al. 2013).

The current chapter and the contributions to this section have identified under-researched areas. As has already been pointed out, the literature displays a skewedregional focus with the bulk of research being done in India and Pakistan. Withinthese two states as well as other SA countries, certain topics appear to be lessresearched. While there is a recognition of the colonial imprint on curricular policiesand structure, research on indigenous knowledge systems, concerns around thesustainability of alternative curriculum models, multiple childhoods, and their inte-gration with knowledge construction is limited. The introduction of large scalereforms has seldom been followed up by corresponding large scale studies of howthe reforms are enacted and what have been their intended or unintended outcomes.Systematic research and analysis on widely used terms like child-centeredness andcritical pedagogy would be useful, particularly if they are rooted in the relevantepistemic and political context. While analyses of textbooks are abundant, howteachers understand and enact textbooks and how that is shaped by teachers’confined status/role and their complex and diverse social locations continue to be achallenge. Students’ voices are even less visible than teachers’ within the literature(Westbrook et al. 2013). Studies of students’ learning outcomes are largely limited toquantitative measures such as outcomes of literacy and numeracy on tests. Whatvalues, attitudes, and identifications students learn from the official and the hiddencurriculum would benefit from further exploration. Certain disciplines/school sub-jects have received little attention. The mathematics curriculum and its enactmentcontinue to be relatively obscure. Vocational and sexuality education curriculumdevelopment and enactment are much under-represented. Studies of institutionalhistories of national and state examination bodies would also fill in existingresearch gaps.


To conclude, the curriculum in SA region, by and large, reflects its colonial past,lacks relevance to local realities, downplays indigenous knowledges, and activelyproduces differentiated citizenry along religious, caste, class, gender, ethnic andgeographical lines. This is not to deny the promise that education and curricularknowledge in particular hold for individuals and diverse groups but to highlight thesignificance of paying close attention to the power and effects of the curriculum. Weend this chapter with Popkewitz (2000, p. 181) who argues that any educational/curricular reform should be interrogated critically “as governing practices thatsimultaneously produce systems of exclusion—spaces of internment and enclosureof ‘the other’—as they seem to open up social spaces.”

Cross-References

▶Assessment of Student Learning in South Asia: Concerns and Challenges▶Civics and Citizenship Education in India and Pakistan▶Conceptions of School Curriculum in South Asia: A Study of India, Pakistan andBangladesh

▶National Identity and the History Curriculum: Nation Making in the Shadow ofPartition

▶Textbooks, Gender, and Conflict in South Asia: Building the Nation▶Trends in Mathematics Curriculum Reform in South Asia

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https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/614322-conference-on-single-national-curriculum-ends

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/614322-conference-on-single-national-curriculum-ends

https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=3433

https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=3433

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