Pakistani Educational Leadership Project Visits Harvard

On July 10, the South Asia Initiative and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University co-sponsored a discussion with a delegation of 20 Pakistani educators from the Pakistani Educational Leadership Project at Plymouth State University (PSU).

It was the ninth such delegation of Pakistani educators, funded by the US Department of State, to the Pakistani Educational Leadership Project’s summer institute. For one month, the group will meet with institutions and educational initiatives in New England and Washington, DC. Members of the delegation come from across Pakistan: from the remote, rural areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh: from the high peaks of the Hindu Kush to the Iranian border and Arabian Sea. The educators work across the entire educational system in Pakistan, in both public and private schools.

During their visit to Harvard, the group met with visiting professor Maggie Ronkin, who is teaching a course entitled “Social Development in Pakistan” at the Harvard Summer School, and Ali S. Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, and Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Studies Program at Harvard University. Several students from the Social Development in Pakistan course also attended the event.

Ronkin and Asani each presented on their courses, and showed the educators some of the resources that they use in their classes. The Pakistani delegation engaged in a lively debate with Ronkin, Asani and Ronkin’s students about how Islam is taught and presented at Harvard University, and the increasing urgency of such inter cultural dialogue.

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