Commentary | Qudsia Kalsoom, Systemic Corruption and Elite Capture: Can Education Transform Pakistan?
IMF’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic (2025) report published on 19th November 2025 has identified systemic corruption, elite capture, and politicised decision-making as structural features of Pakistan’s state apparatus. These systemic issues have led to poverty and low human development in the country, where nearly 96 million people live below the poverty line (World Bank Group, 2024). The country ranks 168th on the UNDP Human Development Index, falling into the low human development category (UNDP, 2025). In contrast, India, who gained independence alongside Pakistan in 1947, ranks 130th while Bangladesh, which became independent in 1971, also ranks 130th. The IMF’s findings suggest the need for systemic reform beyond economic measures and education can serve as a tool for the societal reform.
Considering the deep structural issues, there is an emerging rhetoric around transformative education and transformative learning in Pakistan (For example, PIVOT, PAK-TURK MAARIF, STEAM-PAKISTAN). Recently, the British Council’s Education Symposium 2025 explored “new pathways for transformative learning” and positioned English and digital technologies as gateways to global opportunity (Dawn, Nov 4, 2025). While transformative education is often framed as a means for societal transformation, its principles require grounding in local and national realities rather than global neoliberal agendas.
In Pakistan’s context, the focus of transformative education must address local realities of systemic injustice, corruption, elite capture, and politicised decision-making (IMF, 2025). Yet, education policies remain largely donor-driven (Bengali, 1999) and made by political and civil-military elite who use education as a tool to serve their own interests and reinforce status quo (Malik, 2025). Recently, the government officials have signaled to re-centralise education after 15 years of provincial autonomy (Geo News, Nov 11, 2025). Given these realities, this essay tries to understand whether transformative education and transformative learning are really possible in Pakistan. The essay begins by examining the principles that define transformative education.
What is Transformative Education?
From my 21 years of working in education in Pakistan, I have observed a common misconception among many educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers who equate transformative education with preparing learners for the future job market. To clarify what transformative education truly means, it is helpful to begin with what it is not.
The term transformative originates from the Latin verb transformare, meaning “to change in shape.” Education that maintains the status quo or reinforces existing social structures is not transformative. Its essence lies in creating change. While global realities such as sustainability and climate change affect countries broadly, local structural, political, ideological, constitutional, legal, and environmental conditions shape people’s lives in specific ways. In Pakistan, these realities differ not only from other countries but also across cities and towns within the country. Education that ignores these local contexts and fails to help learners understand and address problematic realities cannot be considered transformative.
Although there is no single definition of transformative education in educational literature, it is generally understood as education that seeks to change unjust and unsustainable societal practices. For example, Kalsoom (2025) argues that transformative education promotes pro-sustainability practices and enables learners to challenge and transform oppressive “practice architectures,” contributing to a more peaceful and just world. Importantly, transformative education begins with personal transformation before leading to broader societal change. Drawing on Jack Mezirow’s (1990) concept of transformative learning, personal transformation involves shifts in one’s meaning perspectives or frames of reference, making them more inclusive and open. Transformative education aims to develop learners’ capacities as systems thinkers, helping them understand local realities, their connections to regional and global contexts, and build action competencies to challenge oppressive, unjust practices and promote socio-economic and ecological justice within their communities and beyond.
Unfinished Business of Educational Colonisation
A major structural barrier in Pakistan’s education system is the enduring legacy of colonial rule, which institutionalised centralised control, language hierarchies, and inequitable access to education. Colonisation, as an unfinished project, continues to shape postcolonial education systems through the agendas of international agencies. Elfert and Ydesen (2023) note that organisations such as the OECD, World Bank, and UNESCO have significantly influenced global education, often reinforcing Western-centric models and neoliberal agendas. Tikly (2004) describes this dominance as a form of “new imperialism,” where institutions like the World Bank, OECD, and British Council promote Western epistemologies as universal standards. Similarly, Rizvi (2007) argues that educational reforms are introduced to meet “the so-called imperatives of the emerging global knowledge economy” (p. 257).
The colonial legacy of English language superiority, combined with continued donor involvement in Pakistan’s education policy and curriculum, has entrenched the perception of Western models as superior and fostered detachment from local culture and realities. Over the past 78 years, Pakistan has implemented numerous education reforms largely shaped by international agencies. For instance, the 1998 Education Policy included extensive participation from foreign agencies such as the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, DFID, JICA, NORAD, GTZ, OPEC, and the EU (Bengali, 1999). While these reforms improved access, they created a culturally superficial system aligned with donor agendas.
A recent example of the continued international organisations’ influence is the Punjab Education Curriculum Textbook and Assessment Authority (PECTAA), established in 2025. PECTAA claims that it is committed to bring transformation, innovation and excellence in education, emphasising alignment with international best practices. While this appears progressive, a closer examination reveals a paradox as its reform agenda is shaped by global education models through its partnerships with major international actors, including the British Council, UNICEF, and the World Bank (PECTAA, World Bank). Such collaborations usually embed international frameworks and priorities into local policy, while overlooking whose values are being promoted, whose knowledge is legitimised, and whose futures are imagined within these internationally oriented visions of ‘quality education’.
The International School Award (ISA), promoted by the British Council and received by many schools in Pakistan, exemplifies the influence of international agencies on local education. Marketed as a prestigious accreditation for schools embedding international awareness and global citizenship, ISA is framed as a pathway to excellence. However, such models rarely operate on reciprocal terms; instead, they function within charity-based or symbolic frameworks, positioning schools in the Global South as recipients of knowledge and validation from Northern counterparts (Bourn, 2014).
The Way Forward
To enact transformative education, Pakistan must engage in a critical dialogue about the purpose and direction of its education system. This involves asking uncomfortable but necessary questions:
What does transformation mean in a postcolonial context?
Can education be truly transformative if it reproduces colonial hierarchies?
How can policymakers resist the allure of global validation and instead build systems rooted in local realities?
What role can educators, students, and communities play in shaping decolonial futures?
The starting point is recognising that education is not neutral. Historically, education has been used by states and international agencies to shape minds and promote the values of powerful groups. Mario Novelli (2023) illustrates this through a USAID-funded project for Afghan refugees in the 1980s, where textbooks included math problems glorifying warfare—serving U.S. geopolitical aims by militarising learning and recruiting Mujahideen fighters. Believing education is apolitical is a fundamental mistake; transformative education begins by changing learners’ frames of references to make them more open and inclusive so that they can understand the bigger picture.
Building on this, it is crucial to examine whether current initiatives truly embody transformation or merely replicate old patterns. While PECTAA’s (2025) mission statement says that it aims at building future-ready education system that nurtures critical thinkers, problem-solvers, and globally competent citizens, it overlooks indigenous pedagogical traditions and knowledge systems. This signals that transformation at PECTAA is viewed as proximity to Western ideals rather than relevance to local realities. This approach risks deepening colonised identities and obstructing the path to sustainable futures.
The way forward lies not in rejecting international collaboration but in redefining its terms. Global frameworks such as citizenship education or sustainability education are valuable as they acknowledge local realities and keep them at centre, but programmes like the ISA must be examined for their implicit hierarchies. Partnerships should be critically assessed for ideological underpinnings.
Recent environmental initiatives in schools such as tree planting, recycling, and reuse are often celebrated as progressive steps. However, these activities rarely qualify as transformative because they remain superficial and disconnected from systemic issues like industrial pollution, unplanned urbanisation, governance failures, and socio-economic inequality. For such efforts to become transformative, they must be embedded within curricula and provide learners with opportunities to critically examine the interests of powerful groups that perpetuate climate and environmental injustice. Transformation is not about isolated acts of “green” behaviour; it is about equipping learners to interrogate power relations and advocate for systemic change.
Transformative education in Pakistan demands more than cosmetic reforms; it requires dismantling colonial legacies and resisting neoliberal agendas. True transformation begins with critical awareness, contextual relevance, and indigenous knowledge at the core of curricula. Educators play a pivotal role in this process, not as passive implementers of top-down policies but as active agents who challenge colonised frameworks and foster critical consciousness in classrooms. Because education imposed from the top remains deeply colonised, a bottom-up approach is essential, one that empowers teachers, learners, and communities to co-create knowledge rooted in local realities.
Dr. Qudsia Kalsoom is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Dundee (UoD), UK, with research interests in sustainability and social justice education. Before joining UoD in 2022, she spent 22 years in Pakistan’s education sector, serving in roles such as school teacher, teacher educator, middle-level leader, and academic in higher education. Through her active involvement in teachers capacity-building initiatives, Dr Kalsoom has mentored hundreds of educators across Pakistan.
To cite this essay, please use the bibliographic entry suggested below:
Qudsia Kalsoom, “Systemic Corruption and Elite Capture: Can Education Transform Pakistan?,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, January 27, 2026; https://doi.org/10.52698/SXRM5306.