ABSTRACT
The school improvement projects that provide the focus for inquiry and discussion that follow were all initiated and supported by the Aga Khan foundation and Aga Khan education services, in collaboration with various other international donors and with local education authorities within the participating education jurisdictions. As a result, school improvement experiences in the developing world have increasing theoretical and policy relevance to contemporary education movements in non-third-world contexts. The individual and collective school improvement experiences told in these case studies are also remarkable because of what can be learned from them about the potential and the limitations of an approach to school improvement grounded in a common set of research-based strategic principles that have been variously enacted in diverse settings subject to changing political and economic contexts over time. Parental contributions to school governance and funding as a result of initial project interventions have turned into challenging scenarios for renewal of ongoing parental support for school improvement.
