Achieving quality education for all is one of the key priorities for South Asia, however, access to education in order to bring the large numbers of out-of-school (OSC) students into the formal education system is still one of the major unfinished projects. Quality education is largely understood as one of the means to be meritorious in the global context, in knowing and doing and figuring out his/her innate capacities. Merit ensures competitive ability, globalised knowing and doing ensures relevancy of learning, and exploration of the innate capacity ensures the self-awareness of one’s individual specialty. However, South Asia’s standard of quality education is below global standards. There are some important paradoxes obstructing quality education in this region, such as lack of conceptual clarity about quality education; ideological dilemma on whether the private sectors should be allowed and encouraged to invest in school education; whether to invest more on teachers’ salary and strengthen subject competencies from the early grades; use/misuse of educational institutions by political parties and certain groups’ ideological interests; live with or prohibit culturally-rooted violence in the minds of children. Without addressing these key paradoxes, it is impossible to achieve better quality education in this region. 

This paper will explore whether South Asia, where 24 percent of the total population of the world reside, can live with these paradoxes; and still ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes such as those enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goal 4.1? The paper will also critically examine the key differences between the globalising individualist Western education system and the informal value-based education system rooted in the South Asian collectivist cultural set-up.