Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS

My work is anchored in broad-spectrum qualitative research methods that can help explain the political economy of educational experience in the Pakistani context. Specifically, I investigate how system design engenders inefficiencies and frictions that contribute to contested notions of identity in sites of learning, and their implications for effective service delivery. 

This theme informs two of my current projects: 

1. A qualitative investigation I lead into Pakistani public school teacher motivation and identity as part of the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) Programme’s Political Economy component housed at the University of Pennsylvania; 
2. A process tracing exploration I co-lead into how delivery models are constructed and enacted by elite public education decision-makers as part of the Pakistan team for Lahore-based think tank IDEAS and its global partners, The Education Commission and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. 

Previously, I was Technical Advisor to the School Education Department, Punjab where I worked on key policy initiatives with the government, including developing a 5-year roadmap for the province’s most urgent reform needs. This project payed special attention to the need for a coherent learning outcomes dataset as well as governance strategies for whole-system improvement. I was also a member of the Punjab Examination Commission, where I led the Technical Committee for the province’s 2019 Assessment Policy Framework and, between 2015 and 2018, a research advisor to Alif Ailaan, Pakistan’s first education advocacy campaign.
I was Pakistan’s 2010 Rhodes Scholar to the University of Oxford, where I read for a DPhil Education (2017) and MSc Comparative and International Education (2011) at St. Anne’s College. My first degree is in Economics from Government College University Lahore.