Rethinking Education in the Context of Post-Pandemic South Asia

This edited volume offers new analytical and methodological approaches to the study of education in the post-pandemic educational context, through case studies from countries in South Asia such as Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Crossing disciplinary and national boundaries to advance collaborative knowledge production in South Asian education, the book explores how different colonial legacies, religious orientations, and positions in the global economy are played out in regional education systems. In doing so, this volume focuses on the educational challenges faced by the region to better understand South Asian society and the existing societal inequalities in the wake of COVID-19. The book highlights how the pandemic invites a re-thinking of current ways of approaching educational research in hybrid forms, and also opens up new areas of research ranging from pedagogical innovations to the well-being of teachers and students.
Offering interdisciplinary perspectives on education in this unique context, this timely book will be highly relevant to students, researchers, and academics in the fields of international and comparative education, South Asian studies, teacher education, and education policy and politics.

Uma Pradhan is Lecturer in Education Studies, University College London, UK. Karen Valentin is Associate Professor of Education Anthropology, Department of Educational Anthropology, School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. Mohini Gupta is a doctorate candidate of Language and Education Anthropology, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, UK.

Part 1: RETHINKING LEARNING 1. Calculations and Discourses of Deficit in Indian Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: 'Learning Loss' 2. Reflections on education in the wake of Covid-19 in Nepal: Learning Loss or Schooling Loss? 3. Tänani D-ph- Khalä's apprenticeship program: Revitalising indigenous knowledge during a global pandemic 4. Negotiating Space and Equity in the On/Offline Classroom: The Hostel, the Home and the Faceless Screen 5. 'Re-thinking' Teacher preparedness in the (post) pandemic Sri Lanka Part 2: RETHINKING EDUCATION INEQUALITIES 6. Rethinking the neighbourhood school in (post-)pandemic India: Synchronicity and segregation 7. A Pernicious Combination of Pandemic and Kashmir Conflict for students in the Valley: A 'Double Lockdown' 8. The Crisis of Education Among Marginalised Learners in India during the Pandemic: Reneged on the Promise of Access 9. Dismal Lives of Women Teachers Working in Low-Cost Private Schools in India: Politics of Precarity 10. The wellbeing of private school teachers during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal Part 3: RETHINKING TECHNOLOGIES OF EDUCATION 11. A phenomenological inquiry into learners' experience of consonance and dissonance during the pandemic in India: Learning in the time of crisis 12. Opportunities and Challenges of Tele Schooling: Lessons from Pakistan 13. The future of online teaching in the Faculties of Management in Sri Lanka: A means to an end or an end to a means? 14. School Practicum Experience in Initial Teacher Education during times of Disruptions: The Case of Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka