LUMS Alumna Awarded Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award 2024
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LUMS BSc 2007 graduate and Founder and CEO of Teach For Pakistan, Khadija Shahper Bakhtiar, has been awarded the Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award 2024 by the University of California, Berkeley. Bakhtiar is the second Pakistani recipient after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to have been honoured with this prestigious award. The Award acknowledges Bakhtiar’s work at Teach For Pakistan, inspiring teacher recruitment and development in the country, and the organisation’s partnerships with the federal and provincial governments and other stakeholders to replicate teacher recruitment and development approaches at scale.
The Elise and Walter A. Haas Award was instituted in 1963 by the University of California, Berkeley and is conferred by the University to one alumnus or alumna from outside the USA in recognition of their distinguished service to their country. Speaking about her achievement, Bakhtiar says, “I am humbled and happy to have been conferred an international award by my alma mater. The slightest hint of pride is accompanied by the realisation that I could not have done it alone; this is a recognition of my fabulous team's commitment, zeal, and hard work.”
“I realised that millions of children are left behind through no fault of their own. Society's inequities trickle into its education system. While studying at the University of California, Berkeley, I was exposed to the Teach For All programme; that, in a way, was my ‘lightbulb moment’. I wanted to do something similar for equitable education and leadership development for systemic change in Pakistan,” says Bakhtiar, on her focused approach to making a difference in education in Pakistan.
Teach For Pakistan, set up by Bakhtiar is a national non-profit organisation that nurtures leadership to end educational inequity. “In Pakistan, the education sector has many shortcomings. Still, the inequity, insufficient focus on quality and learning outcomes for students, and piecemeal approach to reform screamed out for a leadership development programme for youth to ensure a capable and empathic pipeline of human-resource to envision and implement systemic change across sectors,” elaborates Bakhtiar.
Teach For Pakistan provides university graduates the opportunity and support to teach for two years in underserved communities through a structured Fellowship programme and develop the leadership skills and contextual understandings to affect long-term changes for the betterment of the country’s education system. Every year, the organisation conducts a rigorous recruitment drive aimed at brilliant graduates from reputable universities. The process entails online applications, assessment centres, and interviews. The applicants are judged against five essential competencies: academic success, leadership, willingness to build relations with diverse groups, perseverance, and resilience in the face of challenges, self-motivation, organisation and communication skills, and commitment to social change. The final uptake is below 5% of applicants.
To date, the impact of Teach For Pakistan has been phenomenal; its Fellows have taught more than 30,000 students across 132 public schools in underserved rural and peri-urban communities in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, with the indirect beneficiaries running into hundreds of thousands across Pakistan. In Bakhtiar’s words, “The organisation’s Theory of Change is predicated on its Alumni. Seventy percent of them continue to work in education or other social sectors after completing their two-year Fellowship. They do policy work in federal and provincial education programmes, help develop learning-oriented curriculums, and devise Edtech solutions for better learning outcomes. Those who branch out into other professions become flag bearers for equity, enhancing the pipeline of human talent that Pakistan needs to bring about reform across various sectors.”
Going forward, Teach For Pakistan aspires to broaden its role as a convening platform for thought leaders, policymakers, development practitioners, and all other stakeholders to work toward a cohesive sector-wide transformation to ensure equitable education for all. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Teach For Pakistan’s Education Fellows Project with the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training and the Federal Directorate of Education is partially funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office The project is also being implemented in Karachi in partnering with the Sindh School Education and Literacy Department. The Federal and Sindh Governments learn from Teach For Pakistan’s teacher recruitment and development models to replicate them at scale.
Bakhtiar has also engaged with Teach For All’s teacher and alumni leadership development work with partners in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. These forums provide opportunities for mutual learning and sharing best practices. Teach For All is a vast repository of global expertise and a support network for partner programmes.
Bakhtiar is also a Fulbright Scholar and was recognised for her efforts through the 2019 Vice Chancellor’s Alumni Achievement Award at LUMS. Looking back at her LUMS experience, Bakhtiar gives full credit to her alma mater for her success. “When I first arrived at UC Berkeley, I was a little apprehensive about whether I would rise to the occasion, but very soon, I realised that as a LUMS graduate, I had already experienced the rigors, discipline, and intellectual curiosity required to succeed anywhere. I must say that LUMS prepares its students to rise to any challenge, academic or otherwise.”
Commenting further on the role LUMS played in setting up Teach For Pakistan, Bakhtiar says, “It has to be a combination of things: a feeling of gratitude to be at the top university in the country fosters an urge to give back to society, especially to those who did not get similar opportunities in life for no fault of theirs. The National Outreach Programme at LUMS must also have nudged me toward pioneering Teach For Pakistan, as we believe in equitable education and a just society. Also, the continued support and encouragement by Syed Babar Ali Sahib, my teachers, and LUMS faculty members like Dr. Faisal Bari have been a constant source of inspiration for us. Teach For Pakistan Alumni work in various capacities with the Syed Ahsan Ali and Syed Maratib Ali School of Education at LUMS. I am so happy that our two institutions are cross-supporting each other, and I look forward to deepening this collaboration.”
Bakhtiar has made all of us at LUMS proud by bringing this honour to Pakistan. We wish her the best of luck for more successes in her future.
