#pakistan's education system: breeding ground for extremism #terrorism #Islam #jihad

Islamabad - When pupils in year five in Pakistani schools open one of their social studies textbooks they read the following: 'India is our traditional enemy and we should always keep ourselves ready to defend our beloved country from Indian aggression.'

In Urdu lessons, pupils in the same year learn that the 'Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.'

Ahmad Salim and his Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) have been trying for 11 years to have these and many other examples expunged from school books - so far without success.

He has almost given up.

'I don't think I will see changes during my life. That is really very sad,' 66-year-old Salim said. He is not alone in thinking that the ramshackle education system is one reason that Muslim militants are gaining influence in Pakistan.

'Extremism and education are definitely linked,' he said, adding that the political will for reforms is lacking.

The education system has been pushed in an unhelpful direction, especially under the military dictator Zia ul-Haq, who ran the country with an iron fist from 1977 until his death in 1988.

Since then militarism, nationalism and the supremacy of Islam have been preached in classrooms. A more secular, less belligerent syllabus proposed for 2006 and a new education policy were never implemented.

'Eighty per cent of textbooks in 2010 were reproductions of editions from 1981 under Zia ul-Haq,' Salim said.

'If we imagine a child with no other source of information but these textbooks, he would be astonished to know there is a world beyond Pakistan, Muslim countries and our eternal enemy, India,' according to a report due to be published by the South Asian Research and Resource Center, which is connected to the SDPI.

'As India and Hindu are synonymous in Pakistan, the child will naturally look at the Hindu community as sinister enemies engaged in mischief even during the days of peace,' said the report titled Protecting and Promoting the Rights of Religious Minorities through Education and Training, co-authored by Salim.

Without a state school system that prepares students to earn a living, 'more and more children will slide into extremism,' the study said. A particular cause for concern is the 'increased jihadi rhetoric from madrasas and mosques, including calls for an anti-American global jihad.'

The Pakistani education system is divided into state and private schools as well as Koran schools, or madrasas. All three have to stick to the state syllabus for general education, but madrasas concentrate on teaching religious studies, the content of which is hard to check. Many of the young men who later become extremists are educated in madrasas.

Rising poverty is helping promote religious schools, a vicious circle because the poor economic situation is linked with extremism, violence and insecurity.

The madrasas offer pupils free food, accommodation and books - everything that state schools do not provide. The number of Koran schools is officially estimated at more than 10,000.

'The government has allowed religious extremist organisations and jihadi groups to flourish by supporting madrasas that provide them with an endless stream of recruits,' according to the report.

Pakistan's educational infrastructure is also in bad shape. 'The education system is crippled by corruption,' Salim said. 'Ghost schools are built that only exist on paper. Teachers are officially employed and paid but never take up their posts.

'Poverty and the lack of education are the most important reasons for extremism in the country,' said Zahra Arshad, coordinator for the Pakistan Coalition for Education, an umbrella organisation.

Last year, Pakistan - which has atomic weapons - planned to spend around 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on education. That is well under the average even for impoverished South Asia.

Aid groups said the amount actually spent came to less than 1.5 per cent of GDP.

'That is miserably low,' Arshad said, pointing out that 70 per cent is spent on the military.
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