A look into Punjab Assembly resolutions passed during the period 2018-2022 has revealed lawmakers expressing very little concern for the educational crisis in the province. The nature of these resolutions and the number of times an educational issue has been …
Weightage needs to be given to our constitutional fundamental rights, such as article 25-A and article 22(1) over those falling under Principle of policy chapter, such as the much quoted Article 31. This demarcation between chapters is necessary because fundamental rights cannot be compromised at any cost, whereas principles of policy are subjected to availability of resources.
A disaster has hit us hard, and more is expected in the coming years with far more intensity than what we witnessed today. It is now time to sober up and get off with our national obsession with defining religious morals through education. We needed a science-orientated education instead, that could have given us the capacity to deal with calamities that we are today facing. Perhaps it is still not too late to wake up; perhaps a sincere resolve to reform our education in light of current realities can save Pakistan from major disasters in future.
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 …
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?
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.
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.
At my school, our purpose is to restore the childhood of a traumatized child…we transform their fears into love…we welcome our children with music, flowers and our teachers embrace them with reassuring warmth. At my school, we never discourage our children from asking questions and we help them seek their answers. We are against corporal punishments because in my view, use of a stick means failure of a teacher. A teacher’s primary role is to develop in their child an interest for learning and this is exactly what we should aim to achieve
Religion is being excessively used as a cover to hide many holes in our system, and it is major public distraction aimed at keeping the conversations at bay from making the Right to Education a possibility. Pakistan needs to appropriate more budget and resources towards it if it is serious enough in securing its future. There is no other way.
Education is subordinated to the class interests of the urban, professional, English-using elite in Pakistan. For its political interests this elite has been using the name of Islam, and has strengthened the religious lobby, in the process. It has also strengthened the hold of capitalist entrepreneurs on education making for its commodification, importing corporate governance into education and devaluing the state system of education further.