Abstract
The merits of community participation as a means of facilitating worthwhile planning and Policy formulation in education have been widely canvassed in both the developing and developed world. In this paper, the author, from the University of the South Pacific, reports on research undertaken as part of her doctoral studies in the frontier province of North West Pakistan. She suggests that, whatever the general merits of community participation as an idea, in practice it can serve as a tool in the hands of influential policy makers, designed to gain the support of local people for projects which may not be in their interests. It might be possible to think of similar examples from the United Kingdom.
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