WOMEN RISING - Prof. Dr. Bernadette L. Dean - New Order Educationist

Interviewed by Sasha Scheherzade & Adil Ahmad

Published in TCS CONNECT Corporate News Magazine, January 2014 Volume 13 Issue 1

Prof. Dr. Bernadette L. Dean’s teaching and research interests are in curriculum development, social studies education, citizenship education and action research. She has presented her research at many national and international conferences, and has published widely in academic journals and edited books. In addition, she facilitated the development of the framework for the National Curriculum 2006, and worked with teams to understand and write the curriculum for a number of subjects. Dr. Dean has written social studies textbooks for Pakistani schools and a teaching learning resource entitled ‘Creating a Better World: Education for Citizenship, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution’.

Dr. Dean has remained the Principal of the St. Joseph’s College for Women Karachi. Before that she was the Principal of Kinnaird College for Women Lahore, and also served as Head of Academic and Student Affairs at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development in Karachi. She’s been team leader of the Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities Pakistan Program.

“I’ve been teaching teachers and multiplying myself for the bigger part of my career with the Aga Khan Education Network,” says Dr. Dean. “I started engaging with colleges over the last 5 years for the purpose of institution building. It’s not enough to have a LUMS or GIK, or AKU, or IBA. The question that should agitate policy makers’ minds is how does one get good institutions to get even better? Effective systems do away with the need for discretionary power. Institutions that abide by systems are doing very well, but they’re few and far in between.”

Dr. Dean attended St. Lawrence’s School and St. Joseph’s College, and says she has always lived in the Garden East area of Karachi, just two minutes down the road from her school St. Lawrence’s to which she walked every morning.

“Garden East was a very posh locality of Karachi at the time, and a quiet and leafy neighborhood that I loved. It’s very sad to see a lot of the beautiful old houses being knocked down and replaced by blocks of flats. The population growth has negatively affected the ambience.”

Dr. Dean did her Master’s in Psychology from the Karachi University in 1981, and says there was a lot of political trouble and violence there at the time. She and her friends set up banners saying ‘ask not what the country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.’ There was much more freedom and joy in Karachi at that time, she says. “Ethnicity didn’t matter. I never got asked what religion or country I was from. My daughter doesn’t believe me when I tell her I used to go bicycling in the neighborhood. I still think Karachi has a lot to offer, and is still very much a cosmopolitan city and more broadminded than other places.” In 1994 she joined the Aga Khan University for her Masters in Education, and thereafter she got her PhD from Alberta University in Canada, spending 2 years there, but kept coming back to teach at the Aga Khan University. “That period, and the three years I spent in Lahore as the Principal Kinnaird were the only times when I’ve been out of Karachi.”

In 2010 Prof. Dr. Bernadette L. Dean was appointed Principal of her alma mater St. Joseph’s College. “In keeping with the tradition of providing a holistic education stress is laid on ensuring a value-added academic curriculum is taught and students are provided opportunities to participate in a variety of co-curricular activities that serve their development as ethical persons, independent thinkers and responsible and active citizens,” she says, emphasizing that throughout its history the students of St. Joseph's have demonstrated outstanding performance, obtaining merit positions in both the Intermediate Board and Karachi University Examinations in all the programs of study offered by the College.

“Their outstanding performance has also been reflected in various co-curricular activities. On the sports field the College has been a regular recipient of the General Championship of the Inter-Collegiate Tournaments winning the volleyball, table tennis, badminton, throw-ball and athletics competitions. They have also excelled in both English and Urdu debates and declamation contests held at both the Intermediate and University levels.”

Cultivating a sense of community service and imbibing a culture of giving back to the society amongst the students is of paramount importance, she says. “You can make a difference in everything you do. There can be public service in every career. Our undergraduate students complete 100 hours of community service, donate blood regularly and raise charity money for those in need.”

The ‘L’ in Prof. Dr. Bernadette L. Dean stands for Louise. She was born in Karachi, and her father worked with Indian Airlines. “After the 1965 war with India he took a job as liaison officer for the Italian company that built the Tarbela Dam.”

Citizenship education is an important area of her work, she says, and it involves local, national, regional, and global citizenship, taking an active role in society, and understanding the value of your vote. “Most citizens see their role as just voting every 5 years. The government has also to be made accountable during those 5 years, and the only way to do that is to engage with the local Member of Parliament and move petitions on civic issues. Our young people have to develop as global citizens as well by leveraging the Internet and social media.”

Dr. Dean is far from retired in her retirement, and is teaching three courses in global citizenship at NUST on behalf of the British Council, looking for niches where she can make the greatest difference. She is also developing books for Textbook Boards, and writing research methodology on the impact of conflict on education for Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi.

The big question agitating her mind these days is how do we overcome the huge integrity deficit for which the government has become infamous? “I come from a socialist bent of mind and have always championed government involvement. But seeing the government failing so badly I feel it should stop being involved and open education to the private sector and restrict itself to facilitation. Leadership raises performance. The same teachers who don’t show up in government schools do a great job once the school is adopted by private management.”

Prof. Dr. Bernadette L. Dean is blessed with two daughters, Sohni and Zaara. Sohni is a doctor in paediatrics in the USA, and Zaara is a lawyer in Karachi. Her husband Derek has just retired from PIA, and together they provide loving care to their mentor Bro. Norman Wray, former Principal of the St. Patricks Technical School, who at the ripe old age of 90 years suffers from Alzheimer’s.