Parents’ Views Regarding Their Children’s Education and Future in Pakistan SADIA ASHRAF A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Degree of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) London PhD Dissertation 2019 1 2 Declaration ‘I, SADIA ASHRAF confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis.’ SADIA ASHRAF 3 4 Abstract This research aims to uncover lower pay-scale salaried parents’ views about the education and future of their children in Islamabad, Pakistan. Educational opportunities for various regions and segments of population are inequitable due to a stratified system of education in Pakistan. Parents’ views depict their perception of the real educational opportunities available for their children and their capability to optimally access these opportunities. Rich qualitative data, generated through in depth interviews with a purposive sample of small but diverse group of salaried parents in Islamabad, has revealed how they perceive their constraints and their capability to make best educational choices for their children. I have combined theoretical concepts from Amartya Sen’s capability approach and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to analyse my data. The analysis has revealed various strategies adapted by participating parents to expand their choices and capabilities regarding the education of their children. The analysis uncovered three significant areas of parental behaviour regarding children’s education: their capacity to aspire, to get admission to the school of their choice, and to engage in children’ education in and out of school. Parents’ capability regarding their children’s education is found to be influenced by their dispositions and the combination of resources in their possession. Parents have demonstrated that activation and conversion of the form of capital in their possession, reduces their disadvantage or augment their advantage. Those parents who are able to activate the cultural and social forms of capital in their possession, considerably expand their capability to choose the school they prefer for their children, and their agency as well. To expand their capability to support their children’s education in and out of the school, they combine their individual family members’ resources to generate a new form of collective capability, which 5 I call family capability, that is driven by shared functionings regarding children’s education 6 Impact Statement The focus of my research is the views of the urban lower middle-class salaried parents regarding the constraints faced by them in providing education for their children in Islamabad, Pakistan. This research reveals a diversity in these parents’ capability to secure and provide best educational opportunities for their children. The research findings point to the significance of enabling conditions in expanding a family’s capability to reduce their disadvantage through activating and using the resources in their possession. I have found that families as units, use various strategies to reduce their disadvantage or gain advantage for their children in the field of education; most effective strategy involves activating and combining individuals’ resources to optimise individual and collective benefits. This family strategy generates a collective capability which I call family capability. Family capability expands its members’ freedom to achieve their shared and valued functionings and goals regarding the education of their children. The concept of family capability can potentially impact research, family, and society by generating interest in further research and initiating new policy debate; such outcomes may be instigated by disseminating the notion of family capability through publishing in academic journals. My research hopes to incite an academic and policy interest in the strength of the family as a unit which could be an instrument of development in the traditional society of Pakistan and other low and middle income countries. I anticipate that the concept of family capability could lead to further research to explore, 1) the potential of family as an instrument of change in low and middle income countries, and 2) to identify the conditions that enable family to expand their capability to overcome poverty of educational opportunity; and 3) to uncover social benefits of expanding family capabilities. This notion of family capability may also generate policy interest regarding 1) the social value of the family, 2) greater emphasis on family in policy discourse, 3) shifting policy thrust to family as the target unit of social policy; 7 and 4) public Investment in expansion of family capability as a social security network in low and middle income countries. The adverse effects of unrealistic policy targets and ineffective implementation for underprivileged, can be reduced by focusing on expansion of their family capability. To achieve their illusive targets of universal enrolment, the social policy should focus on creating enabling conditions for the expansion of family capabilities regarding children’s education. The social policy that enables and engages family, can potentially influence more individuals than any other approach in Pakistan. A social policy that aims to expand family capabilities regarding the education of their children can: 1. Reduce intergenerational transmission of poverty of opportunity 2. can strengthen social cohesion by expanding underprivileged families’ capabilities regarding their children’s education 3. reduce the impeding impact upon future economic and social development of persisting educational poverty for individuals and groups. 4. Add economic and social value to the educated underprivileged Thus, I envisage numerous beneficial outcomes for low and middle income families and society across the globe. 8 Acknowledgments It is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge the support and help of my supervisors, Professor Jenny Parkes and Professor Carol Vincent. Their guidance and constructive feedback has improved and expanded the range of my analysis. They both have supported me academically as well as emotionally throughout this unique journey of learning. It was an honour and a pleasure to work under the supervision of such learned scholars. It gives me great pleasure to thank Saima, my loving and charming cousin, for always being there for me whenever I needed her. I will always be indebted to my aunt Gulshan Mian, who provided me a home and continuous emotional support during my stay in the UK. Last but not least, I want to thank my dearest late parents Muhammad Ashraf and Surraya Ashraf, who are not in this world but who inculcated the love for learning in my heart and a habit of reading. They taught me to respect human beings as the most important creation of Allah. I thank my father for teaching me to understand and accept the diversity of views as natural and essential, a quality that helped me in the analysis of my qualitative data. 9 Table of Contents Declaration .......................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 5 Impact Statement ............................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... 9 Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. 10 Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... 16 Meanings of Arabic Words ................................................................................................ 18 Ch.1 ........................................................................................................................... 19 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 19 1. Schooling Options: Constraints or Choices ............................................................... 19 2. Cognizance of Constraints: The Topic of this Research ............................................ 21 3. Research Design and Theoretical Framework .......................................................... 22 Ch-2 ........................................................................................................................... 28 Schooling Opportunities and Public Policy in Pakistan ..................................................... 28 Table-2.1: Structure of Education in Pakistan ........................................................... 29 1. Policy: Promises & Provision ..................................................................................... 30 2. Laws and Legislation ................................................................................................. 30 3. Administrative Commitment .................................................................................... 32 4. Financial Commitment .............................................................................................. 33 Table-2.2: Comparison of Literacy, enrolment & Percentage of GDP spent on education among South Asian countries .................................................................