If there is any truth to the analysis given in the column below, then the need for education is critically urgent. The Ulema are dominating the discussion, and the scholars are scared? Perhaps young pakistanis need to reevaluate their silent support of the Ulema!
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What the columnist is getting worried about is the fallout of Pakistan’s Taliban policy that few Pakistanis care to examine. Pakistan threw ECO overboard by alienating all its members. Through the Taliban, it took part in the internal dissensions of Central Asia and sought to penetrate the states there through ideological militias. The lust for dominance was as old as 1988 when the National Assembly was told by the ISI chief Hameed Gul that Pakistan had a chance to “liberate” the Central Asian republics from communist control. The Taliban helped IMU’s Juma Namangani in his insurrection in Tajikistan. Namangani had free access to Pakistan, as did the terrorists from the Arab world, Afghanistan and Indonesia. One Pakistani militia (“Punjabi Taliban”) located in Kandahar was operating in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya under the patronage of the Taliban. Pakistan’s Taliban policy was opposed actively by Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkey. The Americans went into Uzbekistan under the aegis of NATO and held military exercises with Central Asian and Russian troops in 1997. India was pressed into service to foil what was seen by the Central Asians as Pakistan’s attempt to dominate the region. India saw the hijack of its airliner as Pakistan’s penetration of Nepal and staged its flanking move in Tajikistan. The hijack was a plot that included the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and elements inside Pakistan. The hijack was of no use to Pakistan and was finally proved to be harmful to its interests. Pakistan’s flanking moves in Nepal and Bangladesh were answered by India with its own linkage with Ahmad Shah Massoud together with other regional and extra-regional powers. Pakistan’s isolation was complete when Turkey gave refuge to a wounded Dostam and the Turkish president went to India quoting Mahabharata.
Mehmood Mirza writing in “Nawa-e-Waqt” (14 September 2002) stated that Pakistanis usually spoke of borrowing only science and technology from the West, and assumed that they did not need any social sciences from the West because they had their own “ilm al-kalam” (rhetoric) in religion which made them self-sufficient. But, alas, in the field of social sciences, the Muslims had no assets and were mostly ignorant about the advancement of civilisation in the world. Except for one or two, none of the social sciences was taught in the religious seminaries. We had no idea about the European renaissance which changed the Western world. We must evolve a progressive vision of life under Islam and for that we must acquire the discipline of social sciences.
Because we are not good at the sciences we have to borrow technology. To use technology we have to know English. Our response to the possible problem of “contamination” was that our English-learning would be merely “functional”. None of that has worked. Now we know we are backward in the social sciences, which is mainly economics, political science and sociology, but have to rely on what Mr Mirza calls “ilm al-kalam”. There is backwardness of the mind in Pakistan, which is unprecedented. Most of the Islamic world is like that. There are no intellectuals, except scared professionals; but there are ulema that stand in for everything, economists and political scientists rolled into one. What we have done to ourselves will be undone, if we start trying today, in several decades.
What exactly are the obstacles to a better grade of education? We have had civilian governments, foloowed by military dictatorships, why is it so difficult to implement measures which would improve matters?
From what I've seen the standard of English taught in some of the schools in Pakistan is not that great. It used to be a lot higher in the Christian run schools I believe.
Education along with health and other important issues are non existent in Pakistan..all parents who can sell their body and soul for a good price ultimately put their chidren in private schools only to be meted out the same stuff but in a sugar coated form..so...yes it is true that the stds are patheitc..I have proof of it.
Secondly yes the Convents were better..till they were in the hands of the Sisters and Fathers..beautiful people beautiful standards...
alls ended like all standards in Pakistan have...sadder still parents have also lost interest in the standards of their upbringing..thinking sadly that education is the schools problem only!!
I don’t think it is merely a matter of learning english and technology. The issue is that when people start using technology they invariably “import” the sociology upon which that technology is premised. Example: Internet is premised upon very free exchange of ideas. When you start using the Internet and allow it to flourish in a society, it is nearly impossible to restrict its use for spreading a particular propoganda and only business use. Similarly, it is nearly impossible to use English without “importing” ideas behind the useage of the languae. The whole language thrusts a way of life upon its user. There is no way one can use the differentiated verbs and nouns to show respect to elders and upper class people in english as is explicitly done in Urdu. In Pakistan apparently people have selected to identify with Arabic and arabicised their culture over the last 30 years or so (especially after Zia). The arabicising results in a mind set of its own, and since the arab world is at the bottom of heap in so many different levels of acheivement by their own account, Pakistanis are going right along with them.
Here is an analysis by Tariq Rehman in Jang on ghettoziation of education in Pakistan:
As for the schools, the government has always had two systems of education. The poor are given Urdu-medium schools while the rich, or powerful, sections of society are provided public schools, armed forces schools, model schools, cadet colleges and so on. The constitution allows no discrimination among citizens but some citizens, who are obviously more equal then others, are given privileged education through the medium of English in schools which are for better equipped than the ones which are available to ordinary citizens.
This was true but only for schools only a few years back. However, now the government also seems to be withdrawing from higher education. The armed forces, as private entrepreneurs, have opened their own colleges and universities which charge a higher tuition fees from wards of the armed forces thus discriminating among citizens. Moreover, the high fees put a hurdle in the way of the middle classes and eliminates the lower middle classes entirely. These people crowd into the public system of higher education thus ghettoising it – the public system becomes associated with the lower income groups; the less powerful sections of society; the less lucrative fields of study, etc. This makes the public sector less attractive so the faculty is not attracted either. This results in deterioration in the standard of public education and, thus, even more ghettoisation.