Policy recommendations based on a series of in-depth interviews on SNC with education experts (including Madrassah and religious education experts) carried out by Elaine Alam and myself in 2020-21. The concerns expressed reflect the impact SNC would have on our …
There are, so far, two recognised dialects of Domaaki known as the Nagar-Domaaki and Hunza Domaaki with very little differences between the two. Because of this distinctiveness, Domaaki has become very vulnerable to losing its roots, as many words from Brushaski and Shina have been adopted in the language over the past few centuries. Unlike other cultures and spoken languages that their speakers take pride in and initiate steps to uphold their linguistic richness, the Doms seem to have disowned the language of their ancestors. It is feared that over the coming decades, their history, along with the language, will perish and will be deemed unrecognisable. If not saved now, a treasure of knowledge, folklore, tradition and history will be lost forever.
An aspect of current political crisis least talked about is polarization. Whether you look at talk shows, social media, work places or even at home, go through through WhatsApp, there is this peculiar polarization where everyone not only holds their views but rather considers others views as altogether wrong. Technology has hastened this polarization. This is dangerous as these debates often turn aggressive and have not only the potential to damage personal and professional relations but also turn violent. More precariously, it adds another division in a society already divided strongly along class, gender, nation and ethnicity.
How will the government be able to address the structural fault that lies at the heart of not matching up his ministry’s new school initiatives with the teachers’ existing capacities?
There us a serious need for the SNC architects to reconsider some names it has added to the list of heroes or role-models for our children. With recent growing intolerance and incidents of violence, inclusion of persons whose roles have been controversial is the last thing we need our children to be exposed to. A little mindfulness and sensitivity would have been appreciated in undoing the damage already done to our nation’s children and youth.
There should be no doubt that the liberals have for long been pinpointing hate-speech in varying degrees used against religious and ethnic minorities in textbooks. Previous and current governments in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh managed to address and acknowledge unintentional consequences of the certain knowledge concepts and were receptive to the ideas of progressive reforms, albeit strong resistance coming from the right-wing political and religious parties. Such reflection is also expected from the SNC project, however, there remains much to be desired for, especially when Dr. Mariam Chughtai herself is a key figure herself in developing compulsory History Curriculum for middle level students.
The current government, led by cricketer-turned- politician Khan, uses Islamic symbols and slogans to appeal to the utopian ideals of ordinary people in its bid for control of a polarized society. This played a role in the design of the SNC, which aims to appease influential religious figures and the security lobby. Thus, it includes an emphasis on Islamic teachings and the need for a homogenous nation and Urdu as a subject, ideology, and medium in all textbooks.
Where is Article 25-A? Can we not save Pakistan’s future? A time is not far when Pakistan will no longer be able to see any locally educated doctors, engineers, architects, pilots, scientists, teachers to run the economy. All that will be left are the children that grew into darkness and had no skills or knowledge or vocations to compete with the world. That is when it will already be too late for the state to realize the tragic mistakes it is making now by denying education to our precious children.
On one hand HEC is claiming that it has set up monitoring cells for research journals to uplift quality of research, however, the commission doesn’t follow its own rules. As it claims that HJRS recognises only those journals which were indexed by Scopus and Web of Science — which are international research journal indexing companies.
But HEC has recognised the Ancient Punjab in its “Y category” despite, the said journal not being indexed by these two companies. When this scribe approached the HEC to know their stance, an officer of the HEC’s media department demanded they will ask the higher authorities to respond to these questions, and after that they will inform hold further correspondence.
Indoctrination has to leave our textbooks for once and the best the state can do is to ensure that learning at formal schools is made more objective, enquiry-based, and free from all sorts of prejudices. Ideological education systems cannot be merged with formal education system, and making madrassahs system interdependent with our formal schooling system under Single National Curriculum will prove to be a disaster for Pakistan.