Educational curriculum should be so designed that it does not preach divisive rhetoric and intolerance to our youth
ISLAMABAD: January 20 marked another dark day for Pakistan when the Bacha Khan University was attacked by terrorists. This wasn’t just an attack on innocent people; it was an attack on our youth and education and it has raised many doubts in people’s minds. Extremism still prevails in our society and terrorists are still receiving financial help from our enemies. Extremism can be rooted out through education and this is where our enemy has hit us. It wants our people to drift away from education. While some of our enemies are located outside our borders, they execute their plans through extremists within our borders. The executors of their plans are very much part of our society and we need to eliminate them. Unfortunately, the kind of education imparted in some of our madrassas has made them breeding grounds of an extremist, violent mindset. There is a need to implement reforms in madrassas, something which is part of the National Action Plan (NAP). Analysts say that so far only around six out of 20 points of the NAP have been implemented.
The government appears to be lacking the spirit to implement the NAP. It is not just the job of the police and the army to root out terrorism from the country; it is also the job of the political leadership, civil administration and the judiciary. The NAP will only be successful if there is better coordination among all institutions. We, as a nation, should pressure our politicians to implement the NAP so that we can eradicate extremism. We also need to promote education — it should be a top priority of the government. Going a step further, the educational curriculum should be designed in a way that it does not preach divisive rhetoric and intolerance to our youth.
Shiza Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, February 11th, 2016.
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