The EFA Global Monitoring Report for 2005 recognizes, ‘in the past, and particularly in developing countries, imported or inherited curricula have often been judged to be insufficiently sensitive to the local context and to learners’ socio-cultural circumstances’ (UNESCO, 2004). According to Dr. Krishna Kumar, a renowned educationist and practitioner, the education system as it currently stands in its inflexible state, is designed to be a ‘machinery of exclusion for the poor, weak and the disabled‘ (ITA, 2006). Moreover, to a great extent the education system fails to accommodate diverse and localized knowledge systems, thereby leading to their systematic degradation and eventual eradication. The current education system, therefore, has fallen short of providing learning relevance for a significant portion of learners and their respective communities in Pakistan.

Some of the more significant efforts to develop alternative educational ideas are rooted in the realities of lower-income countries and have often arisen as challenges to the legacies of colonialism (UNESCO, 2004). Prominent examples include the approaches of Mahatama Gandhi and Julius Nyerere, both of whom advocated alternative education systems with culturally relevant emphases on self-reliance, equity and rural employment. Emphasis thus should be placed equally on the mutually reinforcing issues of access and relevance in order to fulfill the objective of providing an Education (Meant) For All.