Zuleikha Haji

Zuleikha Haji joined the Curriculum Studies Department at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in March 2013 with the aim of working on the curriculum development project on Muslim Societies and Civilisations. Her role includes working with a team of professionals to produce educationally sound and age-appropriate textbooks on Muslim civilisations. As part of the Editorial Unit, her responsibilities also include comprehensively editing and proofreading textbooks in terms of structure, organisation, flow, format, consistency, grammar and style.

 

Zuleikha’s most recent position before she joined the Institute was as a research assistant at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. As part of the Youth Gender and Citizenship (YGC) project, she analysed the relationship between education, gender and poverty reduction in rural and urban households in Kenya. Zuleikha has also worked as a program manager for an Australian based NGO designing and implementing education development projects in Afghanistan for widows and orphans. Prior to that, she worked as a project manager for a non-profit organisation in designing and managing leadership education programs for health managers and executives across Australia and New Zealand.

 

Within the Ismaili community Zuleikha has served as the Honorary Secretary for the Council for Australia and New Zealand for four years as well as Chairperson for the Aga Khan Youth and Sports Board for Australia and New Zealand for three years; and has contributed extensively to the design, management, implementation and evaluation of Ismaili youth camps and youth development programs over the past 12 years. She is further interested in designing curricular experiences for Ismaili youth that can be continued beyond the programmatic environs and integrated in a holistic manner so as to cut across multiple spheres of home, community and school.

 

Originally from Australia, Zuleikha has obtained an MA in Applied Anthropology and Development Studies and a BSc in Human Geography from Macquarie University, New South Wales. Zuleikha also holds an MPhil degree in Education from the University of Cambridge as part of the Graduate Program in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH class of 2012).

Zuleikha conducted two in-depth field research studies at Horizons al-Ummah youth camp in Canada and at the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa. Both research studies were primarily conducted with secondary students to highlight the impact an interdisciplinary curriculum could have in shaping a student’s identity and essentially their world view.