Dean’s Message
The Syed Ahsan Ali & Syed Maratib Ali School of Education at LUMS was founded as a realization of Syed Babar Ali’s vision to bring about transformational change to the education in Pakistan by drawing in talented young people who are ready to reflect thoughtfully on educational problems, redefine practices for quality education and reimagine an education reform agenda for Pakistan. The aim of the School was to develop leaders in education who could influence policy and practice through evidence based decision making.
The School took off in 2018 with a cohort of 47 students,7 pioneer faculty members, 2 teaching fellows with its MPhil Educational Leadership and Management (ELM) Programme and just two courses offered at undergraduate level. Now six years later, we have grown into a community of 64 enrolled graduates and 269 graduated alumni. We offer 34-36 undergraduate courses each year and four minors at undergraduate level: Minor in Education, Minor in Education with Policy, Politics and Governance, Minor in Education with Curriculum and Instruction, and Minor in Inclusive Education. Our undergraduate student enrolment has steadily increased over the years to 820 students in the past year. We are now planning two majors with other Schools, to align with LUMS vision of learning without borders.
The stellar faculty at the School of Education is an interdisciplinary group of highly accomplished individuals, who bring to the School their expertise and cutting edge knowledge of their field combined with a passion and commitment to the learning of the students and their wellbeing. The different offices at the School make a concerted effort to enrich the educational experience of students and offer them support.
The Student Support Services office at SoE counsels the students and focuses on emotional wellbeing by planning several activities for them throughout the year and ensure the networking of the existing batch with our alumni. The Academics Office offers advice at every step of the way to students and remains engaged with them throughout to facilitate their academic journey. The Office of Partnerships and Placements at the School of Education has signed MoUs with 75 organizations and school systems, and if individual schools within these systems are counted these numbers grow to several times more. Our partnership with government and non-government organizations institutions has led to several small- and large-scale collaborations. These partnerships allow our students to work on a real-life issues identified by an institution, rethink the problem innovatively and work towards finding solutions. This is where the praxis of research and theory takes place. The Practicum Showcase Conference 2024, a forum to present the final year projects of our students, complimented with meaningful discussions with eminent stakeholders in education was again a huge success as always.
The Professional Development and Policy Engagement Office at SoE feeds into extending the impact of the School through a large network of institutions who reach out to us for training of their Heads, teachers and staff. Apart from raising significant revenues for the sustainability of the School, the office facilitates the School to take its innovative approaches to organizational leadership, teaching and learning to practitioners directly.
The School is committed to the values of social justice, equity and inclusion. As such we aim to develop leaders who are reflective, reflexive, and aware of their own biases and that of others to navigate challenging common sense assumptions to establish inclusive educational environments that may feed into a socially just peaceful society. A society where individuals realize not only their rights but also their obligations as national, global and planetary citizens.
Looking forward to a great journey ahead!
Dr. Tayyaba Tamim
