The writer is a development consultant and an English teacher at a private school in Islamabad
Unfortunately, the acquisition of Arabic does not enable people to fully understand or interpret religious texts. There are hundreds of years of jurisprudence and context that are required for decoding religious doctrine. Teaching children to read Arabic will not involve a simultaneous education in Islamic jurisprudence. It is, therefore, unlikely to serve the desired purpose. The introduction of a new language would require the hiring and training of thousands of new teachers. An investment of billions would be required to implement this counterterrorism strategy, the results of which — if ever apparent — would take years to manifest themselves in society.
Counterterrorism measures that offer better value for money should be prioritised. In a country where bomb disposal squads work without protective gear, surely there are more pressing priorities. Often, men with nothing but the shirts on their backs stand between the average citizen and terrorists gunning for them. Our citizens and law enforcers deserve better and sooner.
Let us put aside the efficacy and sanity of this as a counterterrorism strategy and focus on its implications for the education sector. According to the 2012 ASER survey, about 75 to 80 per cent of students in class three cannot read sentences in English or their local regional language meant for students studying in class two. We can barely teach children two languages. There is no merit in teaching an additional language poorly.
The introduction of Arabic is not a new idea. It has been implemented before and the results of prior implementation must be reviewed. The government needs to take a cold, hard look at the impact that learning Arabic has had on children previously. Both their linguistic proficiency and world view can and should be assessed. We cannot continue to let education policy be dictated by political expediency and need to shift focus on needs defined by evidence. If the government is serious about combating the extremist mindset, then teaching children to read another language will be of little use. Teaching them the critical thinking skills required to understand texts is far more essential. A review of existing textbooks riddled with hate and historical inaccuracies that breed ignorance is more urgent.
Our historic neglect of the education sector has us lagging behind regional and global peers in major education indicators, ranging from enrolment to student learning. If we continue to formulate education policy in a vacuum of both, evidence and sanity, it is unlikely that we will be able to produce a workforce that can compete globally. It is unlikely that we will produce citizens that are tolerant or compassionate and it is unlikely that we will extricate Pakistan from the shackles of terrorism that grip it and are suffocating it.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (13)
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I dare ET mod to publish my comments. The lady is in the wrong profession of teaching.. The arabic language is one of the choosen divine language for the scriptures. Every muslim is required to learn the language as well as the arabic culture so as to understand and decode the knowledge which is imbedded in scriptures. It is time that this language is introoduced as compulsary in all schools instead of compelling people to read translations of Quraan in inferior lnaguages. Likewise. the madrassas should include natural science subject for the children as well. May I also remind the readers that on average the humans have not as yet utilised their brain potential beyond the average of estmated 15%. Pakistan Government must improve in the education standards of their teaching community.
Rex Minor
Why don't we ban religious teachings altogether? why do we need to understand it better? That's not going to help. It's high time we remove any islamic or religious teachings from our schools and focus on proper education.
Let our people decide what religion to follow instead of shoving it down our throats and then wondering why so many of our children become brainwashed.
I was left with a dissatisfied feeling after reading this article. The author certainly has her heart in the right place but the arguments don't seem right. It is as if she is saying the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Acquiring a language has deep cultural and (dare I say it) biological roots. Our native language tells us who we are, where we belong, and who we belong to. Our language gives us a window into the history of our people through its written and oral traditions. There is a good reason why the synthetic language Esperanto is doomed to fail. It has no history in any group. No group of human beings has lived and suffered and communicated its sorrows and its joys in Esperanto. Similarly, bringing in Arabic into Pakistan has no cultural basis whatsoever. It has no economic advantage either, like English.
Even if Pakistanis believe that they are "East Asian" and not "South Asian" and so their cultural, intellectual, and historical roots lie in the middle east, even then Arabic would not make sense. Historically, no one in the region now known as Pakistan has spoken Arabic, and to force it upon its people is a bad idea.
These arguments are the right arguments for opposing the imposition of Arabic. And not any other.
Getting rid of hatredness, bigotry and prejudice towards minority and people of other faiths, is more important than teaching Arabic. Pakistan need to rewrite history and tell its citizen the truth and and the whole truth.
Wow... Previous comments baffle me! Why do we teach English?! Shall we abolish that too?
Knowing Arabic would offer Pakistanis an incredible economic advantage whilst dealing with the affluent Gulf states, our neighbors to the west.
Countries like Lebanon teach Arabic (native), French and English side by side. Why can't Pakistan teach Urdu (native), English and Arabic side by side and produce quad lingual citizens?
In fact why can't we offer an option? either Arabic or Mandarin. Whichever track people prefer. And before someone says the issue is budget... It is not. It's about national priorities, effective allocation and good governance.
In a incredibly divisive world, understanding different languages offers a greater opportunity for economic prosperity and peaceful co-existence.
Creating educated masses is very very important in bringing civility into the daily life of everyone. It is said that "Advice or sincere suggestion is seldom welcome, those who need it the most, like it the least". Similarly it is a fact that the very people who can bring about any change that they need, they want, are the people themselves. The more they need the change, the least they can be seen to be organised to achieve it. So the need for everyone of the masses is to work to organise themselves. Thye have tried every other means and failed. Now is the time for them to see the sense in organising themselves and see if they ever fail.
There are many good points raised in this debate about the role of education and growth of terrorism. Education promotes literacy not tolerance. there is no empirical evidence to suggest that low literacy is conducive to terrorism. Ethopia and Senegal have literacy rates of just 39% compared to Pakistan with 57% but the former two do not suffer from terrorism. If text books teach the superiority of one religion over others, history has to be fabricated to feed the narrative. In the process the concept of rational thinking is sacrificed at the alter of expediency. Secondly, what you preach is as important as what you teach. If venom is preached from the pulpit chances of breeding terrorists is higher than probability of producing Saints.
The inevitable consequence of Pakistan’s obsession for boxing above its weight class and nurturing an outsize military in order to seek military parity with India is the stunted development of education besides a whole lot of other social sectors. The situation has been further exacerbated by use of the education system to vilify non-Muslims, once again in order to seek military parity with India by ensuring a steady stream of hate inoculated cannon fodder for the export of Jihadi terrorism into India. Rather irrationally the carnage the hate inoculated cannon fodder is sowing within Pakistan seems to be accepted by Pakistani’s as an reasonable price to pay for achieving parity with India.
Given what I have said above, till such time as Pakistan accepts the immutable reality that she is inferior to India, education and other sectors will remain stunted and suffer the malaise of misallocation of what little is invested for malign purposes.
The solution thus is rather straight forward, but will Pakistan make the rational choice and accept it?
Pakistanis are not Arabs, the focus must be on our rich cultural heritage and we need to grow out of trying to ape the Arabs who seriously want us to grow up also
It is time to re-evaluate our cultural and educational policy. We need to return to our roots, our Govt must focus on indigenous culture, heritage and local languages. We should not divide our glorious past in the boxes of religion. Let's own our past, stop arabization of Pakistan and distortion in history books. Lets promote Sindhi, Punjabi, Baluchi, Pushtoon and Siraiki language, culture and heritage. This is way to defeat hallow religion-ism and extremism.
Why educated Karachi witness so much violence, specially the politics of so called educated middle class party of Karachi always do the politics of violent protests, threats and blackmailing?