Dr. Ghulam Omar Qargha

Ghulam Omar Qargha is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education and an education, research, and evaluation expert with 25 years of experience designing, managing, and assessing international education programs. His work focuses on policy analysis, program design, education transfer, research on teacher education, curriculum, pedagogy, monitoring and evaluation, and learning ecosystems, with a special focus on fragile and conflict-affected contexts. At Brookings, he leads the SPARKS project, which examines how culture, existing education ecosystems, and prevalent learning theories interact with education reforms aimed at changing teaching and learning practices in local contexts.
Previously, Qargha developed national teacher education standards and competency frameworks, supported grassroots school construction, and designed curricula and national education reform agendas. Earlier in his career, he taught chemistry in Jacksonville, Florida. He holds degrees in chemistry (BS, University of North Florida), curriculum and instruction (MEd, George Mason University), international comparative education (MA, Stanford University), and international education policy (PhD, University of Maryland, College Park).