Yahia Baiza

Dr Yahia Baiza is a research associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, United Kingdom, researching education, history, and Islamic and Afghanistan studies, as well as the study of refugee and diaspora communities in Europe, and manuscript analysis. Also, as Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies Regional Editor for Afghanistan (BECS Afghanistan), he develops and publishes digital resources on early childhood, primary, secondary, and higher education levels, as well as childhood and youth studies in Afghanistan. Currently, he is a guest editor at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, working on an edited volume titled Education in Troubled Times: A Global Pluralist Response, which will be published in the summer of 2022.

 

Yahia holds an M.Sc. in Educational Research Methodology (2002), and PhD in Education Studies (2009) from the University of Oxford. Before joining the University of Oxford, he completed a two-year Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, and SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London (1999-2001).

As an educationist and international educational consultant, Yahia contributed to many educational projects, from curriculum and textbook development to education policy and planning. In 2020-2021, at the request of the Office of the First Vice President of Afghanistan, Yahia conducted a thorough textual analysis of the latest Draft Law on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) of Afghanistan. He also offered a set of recommendations on how to improve the TVET law. Among others, in 2006 and 2007, he served as the national representative of the UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning at the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan, where he helped the Ministry to develop its first five-year National Education Strategic Plan (2006-2010), and build technical capacities in educational planning.

His research interests include education, politics, Islam, spirituality, history, diaspora and the study of refugees in Europe, and Persian manuscripts. He is active at both academic and community levels, lecturing extensively at international conferences, universities, and local communities on education, history, religion, Islam, spirituality, pluralism, politics, and Afghanistan.

He is the author of Education in Afghanistan: Developments, Influences, and Legacies since 1901 (Routledge 2013 and 2017), and two forthcoming books, The Hazara Ismailis of Afghanistan and their History (Bloomsbury 2022), and Education in Troubled Times: A Global Pluralist Response (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2021). In addition to authoring and editing more than a dozen of articles for BECS Afghanistan, he has published more than seventy academic articles.

Yahia speaks eight languages. He is fluent in Persian Dari, Pashto, English, German, and Slovak/Czech, and has advanced knowledge of Arabic, Russian and Urdu