IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pid/wpaper/202029.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Fall of Urdu and the Triumph of English in Pakistan: A Political Economic Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • John Willoughby

    (American University)

  • Zehra Aftab

    (American University)

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate both how the use of language in higher education in Pakistan has evolved and why the medium of instruction remains a contested terrain. We focus on the struggle between advocates for the use of Urdu and the use of English. By examining the repeated failed attempts by high political authorities to replace English with Urdu, we demonstrate the usefulness of Avner Greif’s evolutionary, path-dependent theory of institutional change. We also argue, however, that Jack Knight’s focus on the struggle over resources is necessary if we are to understand why the futile attempts to make Urdu the dominant language of education persist.

Suggested Citation

  • John Willoughby & Zehra Aftab, 2020. "The Fall of Urdu and the Triumph of English in Pakistan: A Political Economic Analysis," PIDE-Working Papers 2020:29, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pid:wpaper:2020:29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/Working%20Paper/WorkingPaper-2020-29.pdf
    File Function: First Version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Higher Education; Education and Inequality; Language; Pakistan.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pid:wpaper:2020:29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Khurram Iqbal (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pideipk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.