It was necessary for Pakistan to upscale its entire education system so that it can produce skilled, innovative and enterprising graduates, as well as improve research and innovation capacity to promote dynamic economic development.
Pakistan’s education sector has of course, suffers not only due to the lack of resources, owing to the usurpation of its meager budget, composed mostly of International aid, by the pakistan Army for its own benefits, but also the lack of political will and acute religious extremism, with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) blowing up primary Government schools, have been far more significant factors. Pakistan’s crisis of primary education is worsened by the TTP’s coercive recruitment of children as live bombs.
This is the present educational landscape of Pakistan, where children are both instruments and victims of TTP terrorism. Concerns rise further because of the growing number of madrasas (seminaries) that breed sectarianism and hatred for other communities. Zahid Hussein, an expert on militant Islam in Pakistan argues that madrasas need to go beyond updating their curricula, since this is not going to undercut radicalisation unless there is a change in the environment of the madrasas which create and nurture extremism.
On March 8, 2011, the launch of the March for Education campaign was organised, and a booklet giving a grim picture of the Education Emergency in Pakistan, was released. The booklet noted that one in ten children in Pakistan is out of school, equivalent to the population of Lahore, placing the country second in the global ranking of out-of-school kids. The report says that seven million children in the country are not in primary school, while three million will never see the inside of a classroom. The speakers at the launch lamented the current rate of progress.
Pakistan’s education sector has of course, suffers not only due to the lack of resources, owing to the usurpation of its meager budget, composed mostly of International aid, by the pakistan Army for its own benefits, but also the lack of political will and acute religious extremism, with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) blowing up primary Government schools, have been far more significant factors. Pakistan’s crisis of primary education is worsened by the TTP’s coercive recruitment of children as live bombs.
This is the present educational landscape of Pakistan, where children are both instruments and victims of TTP terrorism. Concerns rise further because of the growing number of madrasas (seminaries) that breed sectarianism and hatred for other communities. Zahid Hussein, an expert on militant Islam in Pakistan argues that madrasas need to go beyond updating their curricula, since this is not going to undercut radicalisation unless there is a change in the environment of the madrasas which create and nurture extremism.
On March 8, 2011, the launch of the March for Education campaign was organised, and a booklet giving a grim picture of the Education Emergency in Pakistan, was released. The booklet noted that one in ten children in Pakistan is out of school, equivalent to the population of Lahore, placing the country second in the global ranking of out-of-school kids. The report says that seven million children in the country are not in primary school, while three million will never see the inside of a classroom. The speakers at the launch lamented the current rate of progress.
The presentation showed children in classrooms that resembled sheds and noted that 35 per cent of schools in Sindh have no building or are in a dangerous condition. Nationwide, over 21,000 schools had no building, while only 39 per cent had electricity. Across Pakistan, just 36 per cent of public schools are said to be in ‘satisfactory’ condition.
The school curriculum in Pakistan has long been condemned as being exclusionary, ideologically motivated, and stereotypical, with obsolete content and biased viewpoints. The Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission, which was constituted by the Pakistan Government under then Chief Justice of Pakistan Supreme Court Hamood-ur-Rehman to investigate the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, noted that the 1971 war saw thousands killed, leaving permanent scars on millions of people in Bangladesh who witnessed torture and death of their countrymen at the hands of the Pakistan Army. Instead of the findings of the report, all that the new generation of Pakistan knows about the war comes from the state curriculum. Instead of setting record straight on the creation of Bangladesh and the real reasons for the separation, students in Pakistan are taught conspiracy theories and factually incorrect versions of history. Nowhere in textbooks is there a mention of the documented atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army, which include mass rape, targeted killings and genocide. The textbooks also fail to mention the number of civilian deaths in East Pakistan in the period leading up to the creation of Bangladesh. Nor do they mention Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s inflexible stand on sharing power with Mujib-ur-Rehman’s Awami League.
Misconceived textbooks indoctrinate the new generation with concocted stories and a distorted history, leaving little space for the de-radicalisation of Pakistani society. Islamabad’s biased course content is bound to produce a violent and intolerant generation.
Thus while the Islamic Republic of pakistan slides downwards towards widespread, chronic, malignant illiteracy & is gripped by ideas of waging Islamic terrorism around the world owning to this illiteracy & ignorance permeating amongst pakistanis, the pakistan Army continues to amass unimaginable wealth, while also building an increasing number of Nuclear weapons, the safety of which remain extremely precarious & holds the distinct possibility of falling in the hands of Islamic terrorist outfits like the Al-Qaeda who may in turn use them against cities in the USA and Europe.
