Got skills?: The study of Pashto

“Survey revealed 90% schools don’t teach Pashto to children, despite the passage of 18th Amendment,” stated Miankhel.

The Express Tribune surveyed 100 participants attending a Pohan Foundation conference on ‘Mother languages’ at Nishtar Hall on Thursday.

The participants coming from varying backgrounds were assessed on their ability to understand and write Pashto and were asked to translate certain words from Urdu to Pashto.

Out of the 100, 28% were able to write the Pashto word for ‘Karobar, Rozgar’ (business) while 61% gave wrong answer, while 1% did not respond. For the second word ‘Akhbar, Rozpanra ’ (newspaper), 45% gave the correct answer while 34% gave the wrong answer and there was no answer from 21%.  Similarly, 47% gave the correct word for ‘Pait, Kheta’ (stomach), 35% were incorrect and 18% did not respond.

When asked to write the word ‘Zuban, Jaba’ (Language), 61% people were successful – 21% were unable to write it in Pashto.

Pohan Foundation Chairman Dr Ayaz Barkwal Miankhel said languages need to be converted into Roman English for easy communication worldwide. “We can easily communicate in Pashto then,” claimed Miankhel.

“A survey revealed 90% schools don’t teach Pashto to children, despite the passage of the 18th Amendment,” stated Miankhel. He also presented a number of pictures showing government buildings and political parties’ advertisements using the language incorrectly.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2013.