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Conceptions of School Curriculum in South Asia

A Study of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

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Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia

Part of the book series: Global Education Systems ((GES))

Abstract

The chapter presents a comparative picture of the broad curricular directions of the three neighboring countries in South Asia with a shared history – India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Based on a review of the primary documents and secondary literature, the chapter broadly maps comparative trends in the most recent National Curriculum Frameworks of the three countries. It focuses on three aspects of the frameworks that include the articulated aims of education, the dominant conceptions of school knowledge or curriculum, and the pedagogic imagination to realize these. Through such an engagement, the chapter presents a comparative account of the (at times inconsistent) discourses that are reflected in these frameworks. These discourses are shaped by or respond to varied factors including historical challenges and debates, national politics, neoliberal regimes of the global education policy, and academic perspectives. In doing so, the chapter also discusses the scope and trajectories of the comparative secondary literature on curriculum in the three countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India

    Gunjan Sharma

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  1. Gunjan Sharma
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Correspondence to Gunjan Sharma .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Padma M. Sarangapani

  2. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, India

    Rekha Pappu

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  1. Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

    Naureen Durrani

  2. School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, India

    Disha Nawani

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Sharma, G. (2020). Conceptions of School Curriculum in South Asia. In: Sarangapani, P., Pappu, R. (eds) Handbook of Education Systems in South Asia. Global Education Systems. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_75-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3309-5_75-1

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