From Disengagement to Co-Production: How Merit-Selected School Leaders Build Bridging Social Capital to Compensate for State Failure in Rural Sindh-Pakistan

Abstract

The present study focuses on the sociological change of the leadership in the district Khairpur Mirs’ Sindh, in the wake of the implementation of the merit-based recruitment of head teachers by the Sukkur IBA University Testing Services (STS). The main focus of the research is that the innovation of these leaders selected on merit basis or commonly known as the IBA head teachers was not administrative efficiency but revolution in sociological engagement. When faced with the persistent state failure, which was the lack of official control, resource inaccessibility, and the degradation of infrastructure, these leaders acted strategically as social capital brokers. Beyond the internal bonding capital of pre-existing school personnel, they actively built bridging capital through vertical and horizontal networks with local media, non-governmental organizations and the community. The paper redefines leadership as network entrepreneurship to examine the ways in which these head teachers designed a parallel informal system of resource-mobilization to reestablish school functioning. A qualitative multiple-case study provides data which shows clear illustrations of such brokerage, such as land donations and media-based greening campaigns. The paper also deals with the looming dangers of this model, especially the possibility of further inequality between schools that have network-savvy heads and those that stay in the category of bureaucratic negligence. The results highlight the necessity of leadership training that includes the social network analysis and community brokerage skills.

Keywords: Disengagement, Co-Production, School Leaders, Build Bridging, Social Capital, State Failure