Education emergency

One among many reasons why Pakistan is in dire socio-political and economic straits today is our consistent neglect of the education sector. Quality education in the country is out of the reach of even an upper-middle class family as these schools are too expensive. In ‘affordable’ schools you get extremely poor quality education.

Inequality in the country has concentrated most of the national wealth in the hands of those few which make up the country’s ruling elite comprising feudal aristocracy, big business, civil-military bureaucracy, big time politicians, top class professionals and even media tycoons. Since the children of these ruling elites get quality education in highly expensive schools they seem to take it for granted that ‘affordable’ schools too impart quality education which is a charitable view of the situation. And the one not so charitable is no compulsion or obligation for the ruling elite to bother about the educational standards of the teeming millions of have-nots.

The consequence of this criminal neglect of the educational standards by the ruling elite has been horrendous in terms of national progress and prosperity.

But affordability is not the only problem eating into the vitals of our education system.

According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), there is a dire need to infuse diverse opinions in the education system, and to develop ethical values among students besides training them in critical thinking and research.

The PIPS recently conducted ten dialogue-cum-training workshops with an overarching purpose to influence teachers and educational discourse in the country for inclusive, tolerant and harmony-supporting education. Below are some of the key findings:

1. The negative impact of education and curricula is felt in both violent and non-violent extremism. The extremist world view on many subjects is not dissimilar to what students are taught; for same reasons, persecution and exclusion of religion and ethnic minorities is condoned.

2. Debates about the nature and future of the country are extremely polarising, with one school of thought invoking religion and the other secularism.

3. The Islamisation project under Zia’s regime in the 1980s, eventually brought religious tensions to surface.

4. Existing educational structure continues to live on the divides in the country. The mainstream education sector is further divided into public versus private, English versus Urdu, and so on. And there is the madrassa education system, which bounds a seminary to be affiliated with one of the five sectarian boards.

5. There is an inability to listen to each other and a tendency to living within one’s pigeon hole.

6. Education if ill-planned can misguide a student of any grade. Many well-off students from applied sciences turned radical because of the exposure to a worldview that espoused believing in ‘exactness’ only — finding one specific solution.

7. Religious minorities are excluded from all aspects of education — decision-making, teaching and curriculum. With misperceptions and factual errors about them being reported in the textbooks.

8. The central role to reverse the tide of disharmony via education rests on the shoulders of teachers. A well-read teacher can open multiple vistas to students.

9. A teacher should be concerned with producing and instilling knowledge and espousing diversity in the classroom, by exposing students to multiple views; the one on ethics, for instance, should know several faiths. A student should be trained to nurture his individual thought and critical thinking. The absence of rationality and critical thinking has resulted in self-righteousness, conspiracy theories, externalisation and victimhood.

10. The discourse from social sciences, offering multiple perspectives, should be brought to the front

11. Media provides little or no coverage of minorities and their issues; the only one they do is linked to violence against minorities.

12. Information picked from the social media without checking its authenticity needs sifting fact from fiction — a role befitting to a teacher.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2018.

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