The dynamic relationship between political, social and educational changes
is central to determining whether educational reform occurred in the Muslim
world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Changes in curricular and
instructional policies and their implications for intellectual and cultural
development are discussed in relation to four major issues.
The Muslim world initially rejected as irrelevant changes introduced from Europe
in the early nineteenth century. Changes in technical, military, and vocational
training dictated by local rulers and elites did not conform to the traditional
educational practices that were the remnants of Islamic education. Comparing
these practices with recent changes runs the risk of overstating where and how
educational reform has taken place.
Available literature indicates that old practices were not reformed and changes
resulted in no significant attitudinal or cultural development. Setting the
European utilitarian and the Muslim altruistic modes against each other resulted
in centralized state-controlled educational institutions and a complete departure
from Islamic education.
The intellectual stagnation that characterized the Muslim world since the early fourteenth century remained despite mass and compulsory schooling in the postcolonial era. Recent reports indicate school and teacher shortages, low educational quality, lack of planning and of curricular and instructional compatibility, and disparity in access to and completion of all types and levels of education between the sexes and between rich and poor and rural and urban populations.
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Copyright 1995, Oxford University Press.
This is a pre-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in the edited Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available through Oxford University Press: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Islam/?ci=0195148037&view=usa.