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For
Americans, accustomed to life at breakneck speed, five months
in South Asia is a lesson in the virtue of patience. Just ask
Robert Louisell, who spent a semester in Islamabad, lending his
expertise in teacher training and education reform to the Pakistani
Ministry of Education. Eager to make travel arrangements for a
conference he was giving in another city, he spent an entire day
pestering bureaucrats for his plane ticket. The more he fretted,
the more amused his Pakistani colleagues became. At last, the
tickets arrived on his desk at the end of the day. "That's
when I realized," Louisell admitted, "that those tickets
wouldn't have arrived till five o'clock no matter what I did."
But even at a slower pace, Louisell helped start the ball rolling
for important changes in education. He delivered seminars about
curriculum and standards and met with teacher trainers to provide
two- and three-day training workshops. "Each seminar became
a little more productive," Louisell recalls. "As I learned
more about Pakistani education, I was more in touch with the similarities--and
the differences--in our curriculums and our approaches to education.
They were learning from me--but I was learning quite a bit from
them, too."
Not only is Pakistan struggling with education reform, much the
way the United States is, but it's also struggling with much more
basic issues. Only about 30 percent of the population is literate,
and though universal education is on the books, only about 50
percent of boys attend primary school. And the situation is especially
bad for girls, who are often discouraged from attending school
because of cultural proscriptions. But the simple act of educating
girls could have enormous consequences. "Studies have shown
that the mortality rate goes down and the birth rate goes down,
all as a function of the education of women," explains Louisell.
It's that promise of what education can accomplish--even if it
takes a while--that made Louisell's year a success. It's also
the thing that may just bring him back again. "What I did
couldn't change the country in big ways--it was more like baby
steps. Change happens very slowly over there," said Louisell.
"But it was a start, and I'm sure others will follow. Next
time I go back, I'm bringing some literacy workers with me."
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