Respecting diversity: Teachers asked to instil civic sense in students

Australian envoy says fundamental human rights are global rights.

ISLAMABAD:

Every teacher has a broad role-modelling duty to inspire future leaders and responsibility for passing on sense of citizenry.

While engaging with fundamental issues, there is need to reflect that every human being is equal regardless of gender, background, culture and religion.

Fundamental human rights are global rights.

These remarks were made by Australian High Commissioner Margaret Adamson on Wednesday. She was speaking at closing ceremony of first round of collaborative workshops by Pakistan Centre of Excellence (PACE).

Australia is one of the most diverse countries, she said. It has many minorities from its indigenous people to smaller communities that have arrived over the period of extensive migration that Australia has experienced and indeed welcomed, the envoy said.

Centre for Research and Strategic Studies (CRSS) Executive Director Imtiaz Gul said that the idea of counter-radicalisation initiative was to reach out to potential opinion multipliers and induce them into critical thinking through a discourse anchored in fundamental global values such as socio-political diversity, acceptance of diversity, rule of law and equal citizenry.

Dr SM Junaid Zaidi, founder rector of Comsats assured full support to the initiative and said that they were happy to collaborate for the programme and values and respect for peace.

Dr Arshad Malik from Comsats also stressed that teachers should impart fundamental global values among students.

The resource persons and intellectuals who interacted with participating lecturers and professors from different universities across the country included Dr AH Nayyar, Afia Salam, Safiullah Gul, Piotr Blacerowicz, Jahangir Khattak, Gulmina Bilal, Rehman Azhar, Jibran Nasir, Zeeshan Salahuddin and Malik Mustafa.

The discussion themes were primarily rule of law, tolerance, diversity, fundamental human rights, equal citizenry and democracy and governance.

PACE, a key initiative of CRSS, is cross-cutting, disciplinary and national while engaging in large global issues. It was launched with support from government of Netherlands and in partnership with Comsats, to promote democratic values, respect for diversity, fundamental human rights and virtues of tolerance as a measure of ensuring social peace and harmony for peaceful co-existence.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2016.