Youth and the national narrative - education, terrorism and the security state in Pakistan

Professor Marie Lall, FRSA

Professor of Education and South Asian Studies at UCL Institute of Education

Marie has served as UCL’s Pro-Vice-Provost for South Asia till November 2018. Professor Lall is a South Asia expert (India, Pakistan and Burma/Myanmar) specialising in political issues and education. 

She has over 25 years of experience in the region. Her research interests focus on the politics of South Asia including both domestic and foreign policy. She works in particular on education policy and education reforms in India, Pakistan and Myanmar with a focus on gender, ethnicity and social exclusion, the formation of national identity, and the linkage between national identity, citizenship and education. 

Marie has written widely on these topics and is the author/editor of 9 books and a monograph. She has been instrumental in providing thought leadership to development agencies, policy makers and governments in South Asia and internationally. She has worked with the World Bank, UNICEF, the British Council, AUSAID, South Asian philanthropic bodies as well as various government ministries across the region. In 2019 Marie's work was honoured at the House of Commons and she was named as one of the 100 most influential people on UK-India relations. Professor Marie Lall completed her B.Sc. Economics and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) and her MPhil from Cambridge University.

Dr Farid Panjwani

Associate Professor at UCL Institute of Education

Dr Panjwani received his doctorate from University of Oxford in philosophy of education. He also holds a master's degree in Education and International Development from the University of London and a degree in Business Administration.

With his broad interest in various fields of the humanities, Dr Panjwani has researched, taught and published on several topics including religious education in schools, inter and intra-religious diversity, interface between religious and citizenship education, place of imagination in learning and the rise of extremisms in contemporary times. He has acted as a consultant to many organisations, both nationally and internationally. He was a member of the National Commission on Religious Education which published its final report last year.

Dr Ali Khan

Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS

Ali’s research interests vary from labour issues to popular culture in Pakistan focusing particularly on cinema and sports. His book ‘Representing Children: Power, Policy and the Discourse on Child Labour in the Football Manufacturing Industry of Pakistan’ was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press.

He is also the General Editor for a series of seven books on Sociology and Anthropology in Pakistan. His last two projects have resulted in co-authored and edited books on cricket – ‘Cricket Cauldron’ (I.B.Tauris, 2013) – and Pakistani cinema – ‘Cinema and Society’ (Oxford University Press, 2016). Ali Khan has an MPhil and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in England.