ABSTRACT
Like most international aid agencies, Britain's Overseas Development Administration (ODA) has developed policies that emphasize capacity building in partner countries. This is particularly true of ODA's approach to educational aid. The Education Policy Paper (ODA, 1994:2) lists six major dimensions to the agency's educational aid program—promoting human resource development, promoting economic reform and growth, promoting good government, reducing poverty, addressing gender issues and tackling environmental problems. All these objectives are couched in the language of assisting partner countries to develop local capacity to achieve progress in the selected areas. In line with this broad objective, in 1988 a Link Project was established by ODA between the curriculum bureaux of the Ministry of Education in Pakistan and the School of Education of the University of Bristol. The British Council also played a role in the project, facilitating the overseas training aspects of the link. The aim of the link was to form a partnership that would contribute to curriculum development in Pakistan in the broadest sense. Components of the project included in-country and overseas training, the provision of books and equipment—in particular, computer equipment and training for each bureau—and the development of joint research projects. Pakistani researchers were invited to spend six week periods at the University of Bristol preparing research proposals, searching the literature and seeking research partners from among the Bristol staff before returning to Pakistan to carry out small research projects. It was from such a short visit that the joint research project analyzed below was initiated. An additional component in the original project design was a plan to cluster schools to promote local curriculum development. This activity proved impossible to implement, despite agreement from both ODA and the government of Pakistan in the original project documentation. After some negotiation, the resources originally committed to this component were redirected to fund the joint research project. ODA's flexibility in responding to the request from the university and the curriculum bureaux reflects well upon the agency, and in evaluating the impact of the overall initiative the outcome of the joint research project counts as a significant achievement.
